A safari park set to replace Dubai Zoo is scheduled for a 2015 opening, according to park officials.

Plans to replace Dubai’s current zoo have been on the cards for nearly a decade, with plans going back as far as early 2005, while the project has been scrutinised, reworked and revised for a method of relocating around 1,000 animals from their existing habitats.

Dubai Municipality is carrying out the 120 hectare (296.5 acre) development, which will be divided into three different sectors – African, Asian and Arabian villages – and will also include an open safari themed around different world locations with architecture to match.

The project is estimated to cost around AED150m (US$40.8m, €30.1m, £24.4m) and the levelling phase of the development has just been completed on site, transforming it from landfill into an area now ready for construction.

Work on the project started in September 2012, with the next stage of development to include a zoo, safari, butterfly park, botanical garden, hotel and golf course, in addition to educational, conservational and veterinary facilities.

The new zoo will provide a much higher quality of life for the animals compared to the current facility, which was originally constructed in 1967.

Plans were drawn up in 2005 and then again in 2007, but collapsed in the wake of the global recession.

In 2012, the civic body confirmed that its location would be at Al Warqa in the south-east of the city.

Dubai Municipality has designed the park to be energy-efficient and will incorporate solar power, water recycling, waste disposal and other recycling facilities into the build.