Towering ambition
Dubai’s superlative-loving rulers are on notice: Saudi Arabia seems to be getting serious about stealing your crowning glory.
State-linked development companies in the Red Sea port of Jiddah have agreed to pay to erect a skyscraper flirting with the unprecedented one-kilometre mark.
That’s about 170 metres taller than the current record spire, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. Or nearly twice as tall as the CN Tower.
Two major state development arms, the Jiddah Economic Co. and Alinma Investment, announced recently a $1.2-billion (U.S.) financing deal to fund the 200-storey tower and surrounding developments. Plans call for the building to be completed in 2020. Already, 26 storeys are built. An observation terrace is planned for floor No. 157 of the tower, shaped like a gleaming shard.
The project is something of a statement piece for Saudi King Salman, who will mark his first year in charge in January.
Many of Saudi Arabia’s landmarks (and boondoggles) — including hard-charging development in the Islamic holy city of Mecca — are legacies of Salman’s predecessor, the late Abdullah.
No doubt that the nearly 80-year-old Salman hopes to be around for a possible ribbon-cutting at the Jiddah Tower.
If it happens, the tallest-skyscraper bragging rights would shift to a fifth country in a little more than a generation.
The Burj Khalifa officially took the title in 2010 from Taiwan’s 510-metre Taipei 101 tower, which held the top spot since 2003.
Before that it was the 452-metre Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which nudged out Chicago’s 442-metre Sears Tower in 1998.