Kingdom Tower - Overview

Overview

The building has been scaled down from its initial 1.6 km (about one mile) proposal, which was never fully designed, to a height of at least 1,000 metres (3,280.84 ft) (the exact height is being kept private while in development, similar to the Burj Khalifa), which, at about one kilometre, would still make it by far the tallest building or structure in the world to date, standing at least 173 m (568 ft) taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The tower and its 50 hectares (120 acres) plot, which will include other buildings, will be the first phase of the Kingdom City development, a three-phase project proposed for a large area of undeveloped waterfront land with an area of 5.2 km² (56 million square feet, or 2 square miles). It was originally planned to cover 23 km² (8.9 square miles) and cost SR100 billion. The area is located roughly 20 km (12 mi) north of the port city of Jeddah. Kingdom City was designed by HOK Architects, and it is estimated that it will cost at least US$20 billion (SR75 billion) and take around 10 years to build. It will essentially become a new district of Jeddah. The second phase of the project will be all the infrastructure development needed to support the city, and the third phase has not yet been disclosed. The focal point of the development, Kingdom Tower's primary purpose will be to house a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, Class A office space, and luxury condominiums; it will also have the world’s highest observatory. Although the Kingdom City plot is nearly isolated from the current urban core of Jeddah, northward is generally considered the direction in which the fast growing city will spread in the future. Regardless of this, no land tracts of such size were available closer to the city, anyway.

The tower is being designed primarily by Chicago-based architect Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS + GG), the same architect who designed the Burj Khalifa while he was working for Skidmore, Owings & Merill (SOM), for which he worked almost 40 years. AS + GG was formed in 2006 by Adrian Smith, Gordon Gill, and Robert Forest. The development of the tower is being managed by Emaar Properties PJSC. Thornton Tomasetti has been selected as the structural engineering firm, and Environmental Systems Design, Inc. (ESD) is a part of the AS + GG design team that serves as the building services engineering consultants.

On 2 August 2011, it was publicly announced by Kingdom Holding, the investment company, that a contract had been signed by Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), construction was going to start soon, and that the tower was expected to take 63 months (5 years, 3 months) to complete. Besix Group (Belgian Six Construct), which constructed the Burj Khalifa, was previously considered for the contract, but did not win, partially because SBG invested in Jeddah Economic Company (JEC), contributing SR1.5 billion (US$400 million) towards the development of the project, and holding a 16.6 percent stake in Jeddah Economic Company. Besix admitted in 2010 that they expected Binladin Group to win the contract. Jeddah Economic Company is a closed joint stock company (PJSC) formed in 2009 as a financial entity for Kingdom Tower and City. It is made up primarily of financiers (stakeholders) Kingdom Holding Company (33.35%), Abrar Holding Company (33.35%), which is owned by Samaual Bakhsh, and businessman Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbatly (16.67%), as well as the tower's own contractor, Saudi Binladin Group (16.63%). JEC's assets have a book value of nearly SR9 billion, broken down between a land bank of over 5,300,000 m2 (57,048,725 sq ft) (the Kingdom City plot) with a value of SR7.3 billion that will be used as collateral to attain bank loans, and SR1.5 billion in cash. Kingdom Holding is an investment company founded in 1980 and 95% owned by Prince Talal that has assets valued at over $25 billion, with interests in many major companies such as Walt Disney, Pepsico, Kodak, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Time Warner, Newscorp, and Citigroup, as well as real estate in London through its Songbird Estates division.