New opening date set for tallest tower
The completion date for the world’s tallest tower has been pushed back to 2019, a Saudi Arabian billionaire said on Thursday, almost six years after launching the recordbreaking project.
Jeddah Tower is to rise more than a kilometre, placing it above Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
“The project was delayed... but it’ll open (in) 2019,” Prince Alwaleed bin Talal told AFP during a visit to the site beside the Red Sea.
Alwaleed chairs Kingdom Holding Co whose affiliated Jeddah Economic Company is developing the spire-topped landmark.
The project contractor Saudi Binladin Group was among construction firms in the kingdom that suffered financially after a collapse in oil revenues from 2014.
The company, which developed other prominent buildings in Saudi Arabia, was founded more than 80 years ago by the father of deceased Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Binladin Group late last year said it had completed payment to 70,000 laid-off employees.
Alwaleed first announced plans for the tower in August 2011, saying it would take 36 months to build after the start of construction.
By November 2014, a four-storey foundation was in place and Alwaleed said the building would be finished in 2018.
But that was before the kingdom felt the full force of a drop in oil revenues.
In November 2015, Kingdom Holding said Jeddah Economic Company had reached a financing deal with Saudi Arabia’s Alinma Investment to finish the Jeddah Tower, which then had 26 floors.
Alwaleed on Thursday rode a construction elevator about 30 floors to meet reporters in the concrete shell of the building, which already offers spectacular views over the rest of Jeddah and the adjacent sea.