Kingdom Holding said last week that its 1.6-kilometre-high Kingdom Tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia is still on track, according to an October 22, 2010 article in Gulf News by Abdul Nabi Shaheen. The tower will double the height by the Burj Kalifa in Dubai, which is the current tallest.
"Jeddah Al Eqtisadiah, a subsidiary of Kingdom Holding, has signed an agreement with the Emaar Group of the UAE to develop a city and the huge tower in Jeddah. Emaar was selected from five multinational companies that competed for the contract," the article said.
"The firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture," it continued, "has been appointed to design the tower. Architect Smith was also involved in the design of Burj Khalifa when he was a member of the firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill," the article said.
The article said that the tower overlooking the Red Sea will be built on an area of 3.5 million square metres in the Obhur Gulf, 20 kilometres north of the Jeddah city centre and not far away from Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport.
Kingdom Holding said yesterday that the project, announced in early 2008, is still on track.
According to information issued by the company, a city to be constructed around the tower will sprawl over an area of 23 million square metres at a total investment of about $26.6 billion and it will have the capacity to accommodate 80,000 people in addition to shopping and entertainment facilities and it will have hospitality facilities catering for up to a million visitors.
Kingdom Tower Jeddah will have retail facilities and conference halls at the top besides a five-star hotel, offices and residential units.
"Jeddah Al Eqtisadiah, a subsidiary of Kingdom Holding, has signed an agreement with the Emaar Group of the UAE to develop a city and the huge tower in Jeddah. Emaar was selected from five multinational companies that competed for the contract," the article said.
"The firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture," it continued, "has been appointed to design the tower. Architect Smith was also involved in the design of Burj Khalifa when he was a member of the firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill," the article said.
The article said that the tower overlooking the Red Sea will be built on an area of 3.5 million square metres in the Obhur Gulf, 20 kilometres north of the Jeddah city centre and not far away from Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport.
Kingdom Holding said yesterday that the project, announced in early 2008, is still on track.
According to information issued by the company, a city to be constructed around the tower will sprawl over an area of 23 million square metres at a total investment of about $26.6 billion and it will have the capacity to accommodate 80,000 people in addition to shopping and entertainment facilities and it will have hospitality facilities catering for up to a million visitors.
Kingdom Tower Jeddah will have retail facilities and conference halls at the top besides a five-star hotel, offices and residential units.
Architecture Critic
Carter Horsley
Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.
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