Covering an area of 23,600 square metres, the theatre will be located in the city's financial hub of Lujiazui, facing the Huangpu River.

The theatre will feature a 3,000-square-metre performance hall, highlighting a huge movable water tank that allows spectators to enjoy the synchronized swimming through the transparent tank wall, according to the developers' plan.

A total of 280 million yuan (US$33.9 million) will be invested in the project, said Fu Huali, president of Shanghai Fish Beauty Entertaining Centre Co Ltd, which will join with another company based in Xi'an to make the investment.

"Our aim is to build a top-class and world-class theme theatre which will put Lujiazui on the map," said Fu.

Lujiazui already boasts a number of important attractions, including the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Jinmao Tower, two tourist favourites.

However, Lujiazui still needs more entertainment and leisure activities to add to its cultural flavour, analysts said.

The theatre will hopefully build on the area's reputation as Shanghai's key central business district.

Despite the ambitious plan for the new theatre, Fu, however, admits that the future theatre's success largely hinges upon the marketing side despite the good facilities and programmes to be unveiled in 2005.

His company currently operates a smaller theme theatre at Lujiazui, founded two years ago with an area of around 1,000 square metres, where aquatic entertainment programmes like water ballet are staged, bringing in an average of 200 spectators every day.

The company expects to receive the go-ahead for the project from the local authorities early next year, before construction is due to start in November, 2003.

The investment will hopefully be recouped in eight years after the theatre's scheduled opening in 2005, said Fu.

"Now we care more about how to build a reputable cultural brand here, rather than mere business returns," he said.

(China Daily January 7, 2003)