A team of officials from the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone (PCPZ) visited the construction site of a colossal tourism project on Sept 17 and called for more efforts to keep up with the work schedule, according to the Pingtan Times.

Retro buildings at the Haitan Ancient City, a tourism project in Pingtan county, Fujian province. [Photo/pingtan.gov.cn]

The 8.6-billion-yuan ($1.4b) project, called Haitan Ancient City and developed by Tongyuan Group, aims to transform approximately 70 hectares of land situated in the Tannan District of Pingtan into a multifunctional retro tourism complex with restaurants, shopping, entertainment, accommodation, and so on.

The first phase of the project, which takes up around 38 hectares, is slated for completion by the next Spring Festival, which is due on Jan 31, 2015.

Workers should strive to keep up to schedule and get the job done by the Spring Festival, while paying attention to the construction of the traffic and underground pipeline network, said Li Dejin, director of PCPZ’s administrative committee.

He also ordered heads of related government departments to coordinate with the construction efforts to blend in more natural characteristics into the landmark tourism project.

Haitan Ancient City, as the name suggests, will be comprised of more than 150 old-style buildings, most of which are two or three storied and open to businesses including restaurants, snack bars, five-star hotels and souvenir stores.

A total of 168 merchants have signed agreements to settle there, according to Wang Jingyu, general manager of Tongyuan Group.

The construction of Haitan Ancient City started in 2013, and is scheduled to come to an end in 2018.