I'll just throw this in here for now and then move it to park construction in a bit since it's already in the process of being built.
I think this place has popped up before, but there wasn't much information and no dedicated topic to it. Plus, at the moment there are no mentions of coasters.
On 28 Dec 2016, construction began on the main project and hotel cluster of the Qingyuan Chimelong International Forest Resort – a park featuring forest and wildlife themes. The park will feature an 88-metre tall iconic building named “Giraffe Castle” and the world’s largest “bird cage” occupying an area of 5 hectares. The four-theme hotel will provide a total of 3,500 rooms where visitors will be able to appreciate realistic animal ecology within the comfort of their hotel or balconies of their hotel rooms. This is the first development phase of Yinzhan Zone – one of the three major attraction zones in Qingyuan Chimelong International Forest Resort. It is scheduled to open in 2019 as a grand token to celebrate Chimelong’s 30th anniversary.
Qingyuan is about 100km north of Guangzhou, where the original Chimelong Paradise park is located. I'd originnally thought that they would have put this place near Ocean Kingdom, but it seems that they want to expand into a totally new area. It also sounds like the landcape of Qingyuan is better suited for a forest theme.
The castle, Giraffe Castle, is ridiculous. They're claiming it as the world's tallest at 88 meters. Chimelong are, unlike many other Chinese parks/chains, pretty decent when it comes to their claims, but can anyone sustantiate that there's nothing taller? 88m is just short of 289 feet. The castle at Shanghai Disney, which I believe is the tallest, is 197 feet.
Theyr'e also constructing a mag-lev train from a train station in the city directly to the resort.
The design of Qingyuan Chimelong International Forest Resort breaks away from the old stereotype of single-hotel theme park, the new theme park will assimilate the natural geography and landscape to create three distinct theme zones namely the Yinzhan Zone, Yingju Zone and Huaqiao Farm Zone. Within each zone, a theme community will be built in line with the geomorphological and environmental characteristics of the zone.
In June 2016, Party Secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee Hu Chunhua visited and assessed Chimelong development in Qingyuan. In August, Deputy Party Secretary and Provincial Governor Zhu Xiaodan convened a special provincial conference to study and promote Chimelong’s development in Qingyuan; and strongly urged the provincial government departments to support Chimelong’s development projects in Qingyuan.
On 6 December 2016, Qingyuan Municipal Government announced the planned construction of Guangdong Province’s first medium to low-speed maglev train. The planned tourist rapid transport system will have a total length of about 30km. The first 8km to be developed will start at Yinzhan Station in Quangdong, Qingyuan and end at Chimelong International Forest Resort. Construction of the project, costing about 10 billion Yuan, is expected to begin in October next year and completed by end of 2018. The improvement and upgrading of the transportation system will provide great support for the Chimelong’s project in Qingyuan.
The first phase is apparently already well underway, with a lot of animals already moved in.
Construction for Yinzhan Zone began as early as November 2015. Of date, construction of the resource base for the Qingyuan Chimelong rare flora and fauna of the world has basically been completed. Dozens of elephants, giraffes and antelopes have already moved in. The completion of the second and third phases of construction in the near future will see the congregation of first-class wildlife protection, breeding and research institution and researchers. In future, the South China Tiger base and an exclusive protection base for very rare animals as well as a world-class gene pool and protection base for the world’s flora and fauna will also be built within the Qingyuan Chimelong territory.
The Yinzhan zone, occupying the largest area of the three zones, is initially designated as forest and animal theme parks featuring super-scale forest resort and hotel clusters complete with commercial facilities. The 100-hectare entrance plaza will be the main theme park entrance plaza for Qingyuan Chimelong International Forest Resort in the future. The centre of the entrance plaza will feature a 30-metre high “Animals United” theme sculpture. As with the 20-metre high stingray sculpture at the entrance of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, upon seeing the gigantic “Animals United” sculpture at the entrance, visitors will be drawn immediately to the mystical kingdom of the forest.
A small commercial township will be built at the entrance plaza, complete with a 280,000m2 car park that will accommodate 4,500 cars. With an area of 20,000m2, the small commercial township is actually not “small” in size. It will feature day and night entertainment for visitors such as international food, cafes, bars, cinemas and leisure shopping.
As I said, no mention of any rides/coasters yet, but the castle will be the tallest building in any theme park, and they'll have the world's largest aviary, which I'm guessing is the picture above.
Occupying an area of 3,000 hectares, the first phase of the forest resort will be completed in three years. Upon completion, its iconic “Giraffe Castle” will stand at 88 metres tall and will become the tallest building within a theme park in the world. In addition, a 5-hectare “bird cage” is expected to become the world’s largest “bird cage”. Visitors can enter the bird cage to observe freely-flying birds in close range. A “Forest Train” will ply within the forest resort so that visitors can travel through the forest and the “bird cage” scenic spots for an adventurous experience. There will also be large-scale forest-theme composite shows – with Giraffe Castle as the central character – featuring superior audio, photoelectric, laser technologies. Last but not least, this super large-scale theme park will also feature super forest parades, super 5D theatre and a large-scale cartoon park.
The hotel cluster, which began construction together with the forest resort, will feature 4 hotels with a total of 3,500 rooms. The 4 hotels will bear different themes: namely giraffe, elephant, rhinoceros and zebra. Hotel guests will encounter the theme animal within every corner of the hotel. You might have been to Chimelong’s White Tiger Restaurant in Guangzhou; but this one will be an upgraded version of the White Tiger Restaurant. Every hotel guest will have the chance to witness for themselves the daily life of giraffes and elephants – within the hotel! As the four theme hotels will be located on both sides of the entrance plaza, hotel guests will be able to appreciate realistic animal ecology on the African savannah, right from their hotel room balcony. The hotel cluster will also sport an international conference and exhibition centre with a huge 5,500m2 conference room and 20 to 30 medium-size multi-function meeting rooms to form an integrated exhibition complex.
In addition, a large-scale water park will also be built along the water boundary surrounding the Yinzhan zone.
All very interesting, and actually not that far away if they stick with the 2019 opening. Hopefully, we'll find out soon what rides, if any, they end up getting.
Everything was taken from Chimelong's website.
http://int.chimelong.com/ZH/news#168
