After 20 years of debate and a wide variety of schemes that never got off the ground, plans have finally been unveiled for a Battersea Power Station development.

Parkview International - the property development company owned by the Hong Kong-based Hwang family and which bought the site a decade ago - has received detailed planning permission for a 'major new destination' - expected to cost not less than £500m. Enabling work is due to begin in 2003.

The 38-acre site, which has 275m of river frontage, will comprise a total of 390,000sq m (4m sq ft) of retail, leisure, hotels, offices and residential accommodation in a design led by Sir Philip Dowson and master planners Arup Associates.

The grade II listed, former power station building itself will be transformed to become a 136,000sq m (1.47m sq ft) retail, restaurant, club, café, bar and leisure destination designed by architects Nicholas Grimshaw and Benoy.

Beneath a glass roof, the iconic building will also house a cinema and galleries arranged around a vast exhibition hall. One of the four chimneys will have an exclusive one-table restaurant at the top.

Surrounding the power station building will be two five-star hotels - one of which will offer 18,000sq m (190,000sq ft) of meeting and banqueting space - with a total of 1,100 bedrooms, office buildings, a 650-unit residential area and a 2,200-seat auditorium.

'We're not trying to build another Leicsester Square or Las Vegas,' says Victor Hwang, Parkview president. 'Instead, we must offer unique functions so that people keep returning. If we succeed, this attraction could have the highest number of annual visits in the UK.'

Transport links to the site are to be improved to cope with visitor numbers. The local railway network will be redeveloped and an 'airwalk' built from Battersea Park Station to the heart of the site. A new jetty will offer high speed riverbus services. Proposals are also being put together for a new footbridge across the Thames.

Once the development is complete - anticipated for early 2007 - Parkview will retain control and management of the site. 'The only way the development can continue to evolve is for us to stay involved,' said project director, Roger Freeston. 'This way we can ensure the Battersea destination never becomes old or tired because it will be constantly being improved and updated.'

The first stage of the development will be the power station building conversion.

• Prior to Parkview's acquistion, the Battersea Power Station site was owned by a consortium led by John Broome, then chair of Alton Towers leisure centre. His theme park-style scheme for the site collapsed, however, through lack of funding and since then many ideas have been put forward, with developments including offices, residential accomodation, a national rock museum, a London Mosque, an interactive industrial museum and more recently, a key rail link to Victoria, a Warner Village cinema complex and a UK home for Cirque du Soleil.

The Hwang family has specialised in large-scale property developments in the Far East for the last 30 years, with other divisions of the group including leisure and hospitality management and transportation.