Jeddah Tower
Jeddah Tower is a megatall skyscrapers|megatall] skyscraper under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Located in the north of the city, it is the centrepiece of the Jeddah Economic City project. Jeddah Tower is planned to be the first building and, upon completion, would become the world’s tallest building or structure, standing at least taller than the Burj Khalifa.
The design, created by American architect Adrian Smith, who also designed the Burj Khalifa, incorporates numerous unique structural and aesthetic features. The creator and leader of the project is Saudi Arabian prince Al [Waleed bin Talal Al Saud|Al-Waleed bin Talal], who is the chairman of Kingdom Holding Company. KHC is a partner in the Jeddah Economic Company, which was formed in 2009 for the development of Jeddah Tower and City.
Construction progress was halted in January 2018, when building owner JEC stopped structural concrete work. At the time, approximately one third of the tower had been completed. The halt resulted from labor issues with a contractor following the 2017–2019 Saudi Arabian purge and the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2023, a new request for proposals was issued for completion of the delayed project. After nearly five years of inactivity, development work resumed in 2023. Construction restarted in January 2025, and the building is expected to be completed as early as 2028.
Site
Jeddah Tower's plot, along with surrounding buildings, will be the first of a three-phase Jeddah Economic City development. The three-phase project was proposed for a large area of undeveloped waterfront land with an area of. The area is located roughly north of the port city of Jeddah. Jeddah Economic City was designed by HOK Architects, and is estimated to cost at least SR75 billion and take around ten years to build.The development is envisioned to grow into a new district of Jeddah. The second phase of the project will be the infrastructure development needed to support the city, and the third phase has not yet been revealed.
The focal point of the development and Jeddah Tower's primary use will be to house a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons short-rental apartments, Class A office space, and luxury condominiums. The tower will also have the world's highest observation deck. Although the Jeddah Economic City plot is nearly isolated from the current urban core of Jeddah, no land tracts of such size were available closer to the city. Northward is generally considered the direction in which the city will spread in the future.
Construction history
In May 2008, soil testing in the area cast doubt over whether the proposed location could support a skyscraper of the proposed one-mile height, and MEED reported that the project had been scaled back, making it "up to shorter". Work on the foundation was scheduled to begin towards the end of 2012. Statements that construction would soon begin were made starting in 2008. In August 2011, the start of construction was slated as "no later than December". This meant the tower was expected to be completed in 2017, though at that time it was also possible that it could still have been completed by the date the media continued to publish, which was the prior estimate of late 2016. Only if construction had begun promptly and gone smoothly could completion in late 2016 have been achieved.Reports in 2009 suggested that the project had been put on hold due to the 2008 financial crisis and that Bechtel was "in the process of ending its involvement with the project". Kingdom Holding Company quickly criticized the news reports, insisting that the project had not been shelved.
Architect selected
In March 2010, Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture was selected as the preliminary architect. Later, when the proposal was more serious, they won a design competition between eight leading architectural firms, including Kohn Pedersen Fox, Pickard Chilton, Pelli Clarke Pelli, and Foster + Partners, as well as the firm Smith formerly worked for, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which was the final competitor in the competition before AS + GG was chosen. In addition to Burj Khalifa, Adrian Smith has designed several other recent towers; the Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, China, the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, and the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, as well as the Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China. The four buildings are all among the forty tallest in the world. Furthermore, the Pearl River Tower is a unique tower that was originally designed to use zero net energy by drawing all its needed power from wind, sunlight, and geothermal mass, though this design goal was not fully achieved.In October 2010, the owners signed a development agreement with Emaar Properties PJSC. The final height of the building was questionable, but it was still listed to be over 1 kilometre. Kingdom Holding said construction was progressing.
Designs for the foundation were in place by early August 2011 and the contract for the piling was tendered. On 16 August 2011, Langan International officially announced their involvement and that the foundation and piling had to be uniquely designed to overcome subsurface issues such as soft bedrock and porous coral rock, which normally could not support a skyscraper without settling. The foundation is similar to that of the Burj Khalifa, but larger; it is expected to average around deep with a concrete pad of area around. The concrete must have low permeability to keep out corrosive salt water from the Red Sea. Its depth and size are also considered to be an indicator of what the tower's final height will be. The piles will be up to deep and the pad over across, yet the building, which will weigh over, is expected to settle. The idea is that it settles evenly enough so that the building does not tip or put undue stress on the superstructure. Computer modelling programmes performed tests at the site to confirm that the foundation design would work. A later design for the foundation, to be constructed by Bauer in 2013, calls for 270 bored piles up to deep, which have to be installed into the difficult ground conditions. Some materials needed for the structure are of concrete and of steel.
Approvals
In March and April 2011, several news agencies reported that the Mile-High Tower design had been approved at that height and that the building would cost almost US$30 billion. This design was going to be drastically larger than the current design, with a floor area of, and would have used futuristic wind-aversion and energy-producing technology for sustainability. It and the surrounding city would have had the ability to accommodate 80,000 residents and one million visitors, according to RIA Novosti.On 2 August 2011, it was publicly announced by Kingdom Holding, the investment company, that a contract had been signed by Saudi Binladin Group, that construction was going to start soon, and that the tower was expected to take 63 months to complete. While the official construction estimate was expected to take five years and three months, others calculated that it will take over seven years, based on the duration of Burj Khalifa's construction.
Contractors selected
In early August 2011, the Binladin Group was chosen as the main construction contractor with the signing of an SR4.6 billion contract, which is less than it cost to build the Burj Khalifa. New renderings were revealed, and on 2 August it was widely reported that the project was a go at the height with a building area of, and will take 63 months to complete. The announcement of the main construction contract signing caused Kingdom Holding Company's stock to jump 3.2% in one day, in addition to KHC already having reported a 21% rise in second-quarter net profit. Gordon Gill and Adrian Smith were also confirmed as the architect. The landscaping contract for the Jeddah Tower was awarded to Landtech Designs, a US-based company, which was tasked with irrigating of green space, to be collected through rainwater.Financing for the Jeddah Tower was complete by September 2012; Talal Al Maiman, chief executive officer and managing director of Kingdom Real Estate Development Co., said it had taken 20 months to gather all the investors. The next month, Kingdom Holding awarded contracts totalling $98 million, and Subul Development Company paid $66.5 million for some land on the site. The Kingdom Riyadh Land project, a mixed-use commercial and residential development, will generate more than $5.33 billion of total investment and will house up to 75,000 people. The final master plan contract was awarded to Omrania & Associates and Barton Willmore. Bauer, a German Foundations equipment manufacturer and contractor, was awarded a $32 million contract to support the initial phases of construction of the Jeddah Tower, including the installation of 270 bored piles measuring in diameter.
The Jeddah Economic Company appointed the joint venture of EC Harris and Mace to manage the project in early 2013. The Saudi Water Company also signed a 2.2 billion-riyal, 25-year deal with JEC to supply of treated and drinking water per day.
Construction begins and delays
Construction started on 1 April 2013. The pilings were completed that December, allowing above-ground construction to commence in September 2014.In late 2017, the owner of Kingdom Holding Co, which owns 33% of the tower, and the chairman of the Saudi Binladen Group, which owns 17% and is the primary contractor, were both arrested as part of the 2017 Saudi Arabian purge. Construction of the tower continued, although some senior managers at Kingdom Holding were redirected to other projects. In February 2018, Mounib Hammoud, CEO of Jeddah Economic City, said that construction was continuing and that they hoped to open the tower by 2020. The walls had risen to by October, with the core reaching 60 storeys; at the end of the year, the reported height was.
Building owner JEC halted structural concrete work in January 2018, with the tower about one-third completed, due to labour issues with a contractor following the Saudi Arabian purge. As a result, work on the tower became stalled. Two months later, Kingdom Holding Company signed a deal with Orange Business Services to provide information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to Jeddah Tower, and construction resumed moved forward after the delay. Work was also stalled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which ultimately led to a years-long delay.
Restart
In September 2023, the Middle East Economic Digest reported that Jeddah Economic City had restarted the project and a request for proposals had been issued for a contract to complete the construction of the tower. Fourteen construction contractors from the region, Europe, and China were given three months to prepare their bids. In May 2024, the architect confirmed that construction would resume, and construction officially restarted in January 2025. Work progressed at a relatively slow rate due to the observation of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia, but soon sped up after the festivities with Jeddah Tower reaching its 66th floor by April 2025. During the restarted construction, a new crane was installed on the core part of the tower in order to accelerate the construction. The Jeddah Tower was estimated to be topped out in 2 years. By January 2026, work had reached the 80th floor and was progressing so quickly that the Jeddah Tower was expected to reach its 100th floor in March.Below is a table of Jeddah Tower's floor progress over the years, with entries in italics being when the tower is expected to reach that floor.
| Year/Date | Floors | Source |
| 10 January 2015 | 12 | |
| 7 June 2015 | 23 | |
| 14 April 2016 | 33 | |
| 7 July 2016 | 44 | |
| 13 July 2016 | 46 | |
| 2 December 2016 | 47 | |
| 2 June 2017 | 58 | |
| October 2017 | 60 | |
| January 2018 | 63 | |
| Year/Date | Floors | Source |
| 23 January 2025 | 64 | |
| 23 March 2025 | 65 | |
| 11 April 2025 | 66 | |
| 6 May 2025 | 67 | |
| 8 August 2025 | 68 | |
| 1 September 2025 | 70 | |
| 1 November 2025 | 75 | |
| 27 November 2025 | 78 | |
| 14 December 2025 | 81 | |
| 23 December 2025 | 82 | |
| 1 January 2026 | 83 | |
| 6 January 2026 | 84 | |
| 10 January 2026 | 85 | |
| 15 January 2026 | 86 | |
| 20 January 2026 | 87 | |
| 25 January 2026 | 88 | |
| 29 January 2026 | 89 | |
| 1 February 2026 | 90 | |
| Mid-to-late February 2026 | 95 | |
| March 2026 | 100 | |
| April 2026 | 110 | |
| May 2026 | 120 | |
| June 2026 | 130 | |
| July 2026 | 140 | |
| August 2026 | 150 | |
| September 2026 | 160 | |
| Late 2026 or Early 2027 | 168 |
Development team
The primary designer of Jeddah Tower is Chicago-based architect Adrian Smith of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the same architect who designed the Burj Khalifa while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he worked for almost 40 years. The development of the tower is being managed by Emaar Properties PJSC. Thornton Tomasetti is the structural engineering firm, and Environmental Systems Design, Inc. is a part of the AS + GG design team that serves as the building services engineering consultants. The main construction firm, Saudi Binladin Group, is owned by the family of the late Osama bin Laden; Adrian Smith emphasized the company’s size and experience make it suitable for large projects.Besix Group, which constructed the Burj Khalifa, was previously considered for the contract, but did not win, partially because SBG invested in Jeddah Economic Company, contributing SR1.5 billion towards the development of the project. Besix admitted in 2010 that they expected Binladin Group to win the contract. Jeddah Economic Company is a closed joint stock company formed in 2009 as a financial entity for Jeddah Tower and Jeddah Economic City. It is made up primarily of financiers Kingdom Holding Company, Abrar Holding Company, which is owned by Samaual Bakhsh and businessman Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbatly, as well as SBG. JEC's assets have a book value of nearly SR9 billion, broken down between a land bank of over 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 Al-Waleed bin Talal that has assets valued at over $25 billion, with interests in many major companies such as Walt Disney Company|Walt Disney], PepsiCo, Kodak, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Time Warner, News Corporation, Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, and Citigroup, as well as real estate in London through its Songbird Estates division.
Architecture
The building has been designed to a height of at least . At about one kilometre, Jeddah Tower would be the tallest building or structure in the world, standing taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.The building will have 59 elevators, including five double-deck elevators, and 12 escalators. The elevators are made by the Finnish company Kone. It will feature the highest observation deck in the world, served by high-speed elevators traveling up to per second in both directions. The elevators are designed to be efficient so that the cables do not become excessively heavy. Jeddah Tower will include three sky lobbies for elevator transfers, ensuring no single elevator travels from the base to the highest occupied floor.
Elevator efficiency and sky lobbies address vertical transportation challenges, allowing transfers without overloading individual elevators. Lessons from Burj Khalifa informed Jeddah Tower’s structural design and planning of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, while meeting local regulations and international building codes. Adrian Smith noted that practical considerations are often a greater challenge than structural durability, with the tower’s form primarily based on intended functions. Orange Group is responsible for the building's information and communications systems.
Internal systems
ESD provides mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and fire protection engineering, as well as teledata, audio/visual, security, and acoustics systems. Langan International handles geotechnical engineering and some ground-level site work including transportation engineering and parking, including the proposed 3,000–4,700 car underground garage near the tower.Economic viability
The building will include retail and other amenities to operate as a semi-self-sustaining "vertical city". The estimated construction cost of US$1.23 billion is lower than Burj Khalifa’s US$1.5 billion, partly due to lower labor costs and three-shift construction.The area around the tower will include public space, a shopping mall, and residential and commercial developments, forming the Jeddah Tower Water Front District, with the tower site covering. Like other iconic skyscrapers, the tower is intended to be symbolic and to raise surrounding land values rather than its own profitability. Adrian Smith said the design "evokes a bundle of leaves shooting up from the ground; a burst of new life that heralds more growth all around it." The tower and Jeddah Economic City are designed to be interdependent. Talal Al Maiman, board member of Jeddah Economic Company, said the tower will significantly increase the value of surrounding properties.
The development model follows Burj Khalifa, where surrounding malls, hotels, and condominiums in Downtown Dubai generated the majority of project revenue, while the tower itself had minimal profit. In 2011, consultancy EC Harris reported Saudi Arabia is the least expensive Middle Eastern country for construction, cheaper than Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. The tower’s proximity to King Abdulaziz International Airport may affect airspace. Experts noted that buildings over one kilometre, including those approaching, are technically feasible but present practical and sustainability challenges.
Impact
Saudi Arabia has experienced increased demand in its real estate market, accompanied by rising property prices, which some analysts have described as indicative of a potential real estate bubble. These trends have been linked to rapid population growth and a limited supply of housing. Demand has also extended to high-end residential developments, including projects such as the Jeddah Tower. In response to housing shortages, the Saudi government announced plans to invest US$67 billion in the construction of approximately 500,000 homes nationwide as part of broader economic and social development initiatives. Saudi officials have stated that roughly 900 new housing units per day are required to meet the needs of the growing population, which has nearly quadrupled over the past four decades.The Jeddah Tower is planned as a central component of the wider Jeddah Economic City development. In parallel, multiple infrastructure and urban redevelopment projects have been undertaken or proposed across Saudi Arabia. Among these is the US$7.2 billion expansion of King Abdulaziz International Airport, which is intended to support increased capacity and regional development.
According to a representative from Standard Chartered, which invested US$75 million in the Saudi Binladin Group, Saudi Arabia is expected to allocate more than US$400 billion toward infrastructure projects over several years. Analysis by Citigroup reported that approximately US$220 billion in development spending, representing 36 percent of total construction expenditure in the Middle East and North Africa, could directly or indirectly affect the Jeddah Tower project. The Jeddah Tower and its surrounding development have also been presented by planners as an example of environmentally conscious construction, incorporating modern technologies aimed at reducing their overall carbon footprint relative to projected occupancy levels.
Reception
Developers have suggested that large-scale landmark developments and the international visibility associated with constructing the world’s tallest building could contribute to gentrification and increased foreign interest in the country. Architect Adrian Smith, the tower’s designer, described the project as a symbol of Saudi Arabia’s economic ambitions and technological capabilities. In contrast, Bob Sinn, a principal engineer at Thornton Tomasetti, noted that the primary difficulties associated with constructing buildings of extreme height are often related to practical and operational considerations rather than structural feasibility alone.Talal Al Maiman, a board member of both Kingdom Holding Company and Jeddah Economic Company, stated that the tower is intended to function as both an economic catalyst and a symbolic representation of the kingdom’s position in the global economy. Businessman Al-Waleed bin Talal characterized the development as a political and economic statement emphasizing domestic investment priorities.