Seagaia, Japan's $2.5B bubble-era resort, bankrupt in 2001

The Seagaia resort was built in Miyazaki, southern Japan, during the peak of Japan's asset price bubble. Its centerpiece was the Ocean Dome — the world's largest indoor waterpark, with a retractable roof, a 12,000 m² artificial beach, and a wave machine holding 13,500 tonnes of water. The construction cost for the dome alone was ¥200 billion (about $1.8 billion). The full resort spanned 340 hectares with five hotels, golf courses, a botanical park, and a zoo.

The resort opened in July 1993, just as Japan's bubble economy was collapsing. It peaked at 1.25 million visitors in 1995, but attendance declined sharply as the economic downturn deepened. The massive debt incurred during construction — a total of ¥276 billion ($2.5 billion) — became impossible to service. The resort was bleeding money, and the public-private partnership that had financed it had no way to recover the investment.

On February 19, 2001, Phoenix Resort Ltd. and two affiliates filed for bankruptcy protection. It was the largest failure of a public-private partnership in Japanese history and became a symbol of the excesses of the bubble era. The resort was sold to U.S. private equity fund Ripplewood Holdings for ¥16.2 billion ($148 million) — less than 10% of the construction cost.

Ripplewood invested ¥3.5 billion in renovations, but the resort never recovered. The Ocean Dome closed in 2007 and was demolished in 2017. The hotel continues to operate under different ownership, but the original company that built Japan's most extravagant indoor beach was gone.