The tower is set to be the world’s tallest, reaching a height of more than 1,000m - more than three times the height of the 310m Shard in London, more than twice the height of Malaysia's 452m Petronas Towers, and 20% higher than the current record holder, Dubai's 830m Burj Khalifa. But an even taller tower of 1,050m is planned for Azerbaijan.
Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) puts the total cost of the Jeddah skyscraper at SR4.6bn (£780m).
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 metres of land in the north of Jeddah overlooking the Red Sea and Obhur Creek. Work on the development began at the start of this year. The partners of JEC are KHC, Samaual Bakhsh, Abraar, International Holding Company, Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbatly and Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBG).
An interdisciplinary team led by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG), based in Chicago, created the design of the Kingdom Tower. The team also included building services engineering consultants, Environmental Systems Design and structural engineering consultants, Thornton Tomasetti. JEC selected the AS+GG scheme after a lengthy competition process in which SOM, Pickard Chilton, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Pelli Clarke Pelli and Foster + Partners also participated.
Five contractors were invited to offer proposals for the Kingdom Tower and a short list of three firms submitted final offers for the tower construction. The Saudi Bin Laden Group (SBG) offer won on price, quality and schedule.
"The vision of constructing the tallest tower in the world in Jeddah belongs to HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, who was closely involved in the selection of the scheme currently under design,” said Talal Al Maiman, a board member of both KHC and JEC. “Prince Alwaleed, Mr Bakhsh, Mr Sharbatly and I were impressed by the boldness and simplicity of the AS+GG design,” he said. “Kingdom Tower’s height is remarkable, obviously, but the building’s iconic status will not depend solely on that aspect. Its form is brilliantly sculpted, making it quite simply the most beautiful building in the world of any height.”
The total construction area is more than 500,000m2 and the Kingdom Tower will be a mixed-use building featuring a hotel, apartments, office space, an observatory that will be higher than the world’s current highest observation deck.
The overall estimated cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be SR75 billion (£12.7bn).
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