Hollywood’s Universal Studios to build theme park in Dubai

Hold on to your hats, a Disneyland-like theme park is soon coming to the United Arab Emirates. On the news recently, the America’s Universal Studios will develop a US$2.2 billion (euro 1.62 billion) theme park - modeled after those in Florida, California and Japan - in the Middle East boomtown of Dubai. The project, a 22-million-sq-ft development, will be built within Dubailand.

It is being jointly developed by Tatweer and Universal and Resorts (UPR), a unit of NBC Universal, which owns Universal Studios Hollywood. The 6.5 million square-foot (600,000 square-meter) theme park, described by Tatweer as one of the world’s largest, will be the centerpiece of a gargantuan uber-park dubbed Dubailand that is under construction on the city’s desert outskirts.

Dubailand itself is being developed as an Orlando-style entertainment zone with several other amusement parks, offices and housing - including what is described as the world’s first apartment building that rotates on its axis. Universal City Dubai expects to lure visitors from Asia, Europe and elsewhere in the when its first phase is completed around 2010.

~ by pickholes on May 5, 2007.