Bin Laden Group to Construct Tallest Building

Kingdom Holding Company, the Saudi Arabia-based developer, has awarded a $1.2 billion (Dh4.41 billion) contract to the country’s Bin Laden Group for constructing the one-kilometre tall tower in Jeddah that is set to break Dubai’s Burj Khalifa record as the world’s tallest building. Five contractors were invited to offer proposals for the Kingdom Tower and a short list was made of three firms that submitted final offers,reported Gulf News Tuesady. “The Saudi Bin Laden Group [SBG], whose offer was the most attractive in terms of price, quality and schedule, was chosen for the project,” the company said in a statement. Kingdom Tower will be the centrepiece 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. The southeast portion of Kingdom Tower’s base will be in a direct line with the Kaaba in Makkah, Islam’s holiest site. With a total construction area of over 500,000 square metres, the Kingdom Tower will be a mixed-use building featuring a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced 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 4.6 billion Saudi riyals (Dh4.4 billion) and the overall estimated cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be $20 billion.