Roma Vetus Readying For Construction Roma Vetus Readying For Construction / $700 Mil Park To Have Film, Tv Sets

Construction is expected to begin by the end of this year on a $700 million ancient Rome theme park that is planned on a sprawling 145-acre site near Urbino, in central Italy. The complex, Roma Vetus, is also intended to serve as a set for movies and TV series.

A spokeswoman for the project said an unnamed Luxembourg-based company associated with the project has scheduled a Sept. 10 meeting, during which it is expected to appoint a new board, increase its capital to as much as 200 billion lira ($117 million), and reveal the names of investors who it has not identified so far.

Roma Vetus expects to obtain final approval to build the theme park from Italian municipal authorities in October so that work can begin by the end of the year. The project has met with opposition from the mayor of Orvieto and from local groups of environmental activists. The initial investment is estimated at 450 billion lira ($264 million), while the ballpark figure for total cost is 1.2 trillion lira ($700 million).

The current Roma Vetus advisory board includes Rothschild merchant bank, Saudi entertainment entrepreneur Tarak Ben Ammar's Kingdom Entertainment, and Oscar-winning Italian special effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi. Italian financier and former MGM owner Giancarlo Parretti, who is a fugitive from U.S. justice, and Saudi multibillionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, are also rumored to be involved. Roma Vetus has denied that Parretti is connected with the project.

The project was unveiled last November at the MIFED market in Milan, where a miniature model of Roma Vetus was on display.

At MIFED, Roma Vetus managing director Pietro Terenzio said it would entail building real-scale replicas of large sections of ancient Rome, including the Colosseum and the Caracalla Baths. The site of the planned theme park is about an hour away from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport.

Terenzio also said that Roma Vetus holds rights to a series of historical best-sellers set in ancient Rome by Australian novelist Colleen McCullough, author of "The Thorn Birds," and is developing TV projects based on them.