After more than a decade of development, visitors hoping to explore Dubai’s new state-of-the-art safari park will have to wait just a little longer after the opening date was pushed back until the end of March next year.

Originally scheduled to open at the start of January, the park will now open on 31 March 2017, thanks to delays caused by an extremely hot summer, which slowed construction and hampered plans to import and home a number of rare animals in time for the launch.

According to safari park director Tim Husband, the entire park is around 60 per cent finished, with 70 per cent of the drive through section and African village also completed.

The 120 hectare (296.5 acre) development in Dubai’s Al Warqaa district will be divided into three different sectors – African, Asian and Arabian – and will also include an open safari themed around different world locations with architecture to match.

With temperature and issue, the safari park will use a number of unique technologies to accommodate its animals in the arid desert climate, including rocks fitted with air conditioning to keep temperatures down.

The park replaces Dubai’s zoo – an outdated development which first opened its doors in 1976 – with plans dating back to 2005. During that timeframe, the project has been scrutinised, reworked and revised for a method of relocating around 1,000 animals from their existing habitats. Plans were drawn up in 2005 and then again in 2007, but collapsed in the wake of the global recession. Work finally started at the third time of asking, with development getting underway in September 2012.

Financed by the Dubai Municipality, the AED150m (US$40.8m, €37.1m, £33.5m) project by design and construction firm Cape Reed will eventually include a zoo, safari, butterfly park, botanical garden, hotel and golf course, in addition to educational, conservation and veterinary facilities.