World's tallest tower to be built for $1.2 bn

Construction work will soon commence on the world's tallest tower, with a height of over 1,000 metres, in Jeddah, it has been announced by the Chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud

The contract for construction of the tower, dubbed Kingdom Tower, has already been awarded, said Alwaleed, who initiated and was the driving force behind the decision to build the world's tallest building in Saudi Arabia.

Kingdom Tower will be the centerpiece and the first construction phase of Kingdom City, Jeddah Economic Company's (JEC) new urban development of more than 5.3 million square meters of land in the north of Jeddah, overlooking the Red Sea and Obhur Creek.

Five contractors were invited to offer proposals for Kingdom Tower and a short-list of three firms submitted final offers for the tower construction. The Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBG), whose offer was the most attractive in terms of price, quality and schedule, was chosen for the project.

With a total construction area of over 500,000 square meters, the soaring Kingdom Tower will be a mixed-use building featuring a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons service apartments, first class office space, luxury condominiums and an observatory that will be higher than the world's current highest observation deck.

The overall construction cost of the tower is $1.2 billion (4.6 billion Saudi riyals) and the overall estimated cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be $20 billion (75 billion riyals).

The partners of JEC are Kingdom Holding Company, Samaual Bakhsh, Abraar, International Holding Company, prominent Jeddah businessmen Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbatly and Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBG).

The capital of JEC is made up of $2.34 billion (8.8 billion riyals) in land value, assets that are $1.94 billion (7.3 billion riyals), plus $0.39 billion (1.5 billion riyals) in cash contributed by SBG that further demonstrates their confidence in this extensive project.

"We are confident that upon completion, Kingdom Tower will become one of the world's great tourist destinations as well as one of the most attractive places to live and work," Sharbatly and Bakhsh said in a joint statement.

"In the meantime, it will create thousands of jobs, spurring the local economy," the statement said.