Work on the Legoland Korea theme park is set to resume with Merlin Entertainments signing a new agreement with the government of Gangwon Province.
Merlin Entertainments is expected to invest more than RKW300bn ($280.3m) in Legoland Korea, with around half going towards construction of the park and associated facilities. John Jakobsen, chief new openings officer for Merlin, visited Chuncheon on 14 May to sign an agreement with Gangwon Province and LL Development, a special-purpose corporation created for the project.
Legoland Korea, located on the island of Jung-do in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, has been beset by seven years of delays and financial troubles.
The project was started September 2011. In 2014, Merlin officially announced that it would open Legoland Korea in 2017, however construction came to a halt after massive prehistoric ruins were discovered on the site.
Legoland Korea will be twice the size of Legoland Japan, which was reported not to have met intial revenue targets. Legoland Japan is now planning its own expansion to add a new hotel and aquarium. The Korean site will include around 40 Lego attractions as well as a hotel, water park and retail complex. It is expected to be completed by 2020, a year and a half later than the original schedule.
Merlin operates eight Legoland theme parks around the world with locations in Denmark, the UK, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the UAE and the US. It also has another park in development in Shanghai, China.
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