After 13 years of negotiations with the Chinese government, NBCUniversal's Universal Parks & Resorts said it will open a $3.3 billion, 300-acre theme park in Beijing, reports the LA Times. The park is expected ot open in 2019.

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The theme park will be based in the district Tongzhou, the Eastern gateway to Beijing's center. It will feature many of the main attractions at other Universal Parks & Resorts, along with a CityWalk retail and dining complex and a themed resort hotel on site.

Universal's Chinese partner 'Beijing Shouhuan Cultural Tourism Investment Co. Ltd' worked on acquiring the land in 2013 for $300 million. The end price is expected to be $3.3 billion, although it;s not uncommon for Universal Parks & Resorts go over budget in development.

This is definitely possible with the company already looking at another 1,000-acres of land to add to the resort. Universal will offer rides related to Harry Potter, Transformers, Despicable Me and other fan favorites at the resort, alongside some cultural parts for Beijing.

China has become a big market for Universal with Transformers: Age of Extinction the top grossing film of 2014 in China. This move might have taken a long time to get permission for, but with the way the Chinese economy has grown in 13 years - it might be worth the wait.

Universal is not the only theme park company looking to open shop in China, and in fact they will be a bit late to the party with a 2019 launch date. Disney has a $4.4 billion complex developing in Shanghai, with a launch date of 2015, along with 58 other theme parks by 2020.

China eased their theme park approval methods in 2013, allowing more companies to get their theme park ideas approved. This has resulted in a significant increase of new theme park projects coming to China.

TagsUniversal Studios, Universal Parks & Resorts, Chinese theme parks, Tongzhou