Saudi PIF mulls 2-km megatall skyscraper near Riyadh
DUBAI, December 8, 2022
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF (The Public Investment Fund) plans to build a 2-km-high megatall tower as part of an 18-sq-km masterplanned development to the north of Riyadh, said a report by Meed.
The key players involved in the project include US-based designer firms Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) and Gensler; 10Design, which is part of France’s Egis; and Dubai-based Killa Design, stated the report.
The mega tall project is expected to come up on an area west of the existing King Khalid International Airport, for which audit group EY had already conducted the feasibility study.
According to The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), a ‘megatall’ building is one that is more than 600 m (1,968 ft) in height.
The proposed tower will be more than double the height of the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands 828 m tall, the report added.
A major global player, PIF had recently secured the largest corporate purpose loan of $17 billion.
TradeArabia had last month reported that the seven-year senior unsecured term loan was self-arranged with 25 banks globally across Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia.
This loan comes in continuation of PIF’s strategy to diversify its sources of funding, thus helping to drive impactful investment in Saudi Arabia and internationally.
The Saudi wealth fund had also last month unveiled the masterplan for one of the world’s largest airports - King Salman International Airport - in capital Riyadh.
Spanning an area of 57 sq km, it will boasts six parallel runways as well as 12 sq km of airport support facilities, residential and recreational facilities, retail outlets, and other logistics real estate.
On the residential front, its key unit Roshn, a national community developer, has been launching a range of mega community developments across the kingdom.
In another development, one of its key subsidiaries Saudi Entertainment Ventures (Seven) sealed an exclusive partnership agreement with Warner Bros Discovery, a global leader in real-life entertainment, to bring purpose-built indoor adventures centres to the kingdom which integrate Discovery’s media content.
Seven will be investing more than SR50 billion ($13.3 billion) on building 21 entertainment destinations across the kingdom that will provide unique and innovative world-class entertainment experiences and global partnerships from within the sector.
