Hasta La Ideas

While the financial bust of the last couple of years might have you believing that the Burj Khalifa in cash-strapped, bust-affected Dubai would be the last “world’s tallest building” being constructed for a while, it’s sounding more and more likely that you’re wrong. We reported back in March that Adrian Smith, who had designed the Burj while he was at Skidmore, Owings & Merill, had been tapped by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal to design a tower in the port city of Jeddah that would put the Burj to shame, coming in at nearly twice as tall at roughly a full mile high, and costing tens of billions of dollars. While the project has gone quiet over the last seven months, Gulf News has reported that the Prince’s development company is still plugging away and, despite what had been rumored, they are not planning to cutting back on the size of the project in the slightest. And if building the world’s new tallest tower weren’t enough, here’s a description from the paper about the real scope of the plans:

According to official information issued by the company, a city to be constructed around the tower will sprawl over an area of 23 million square metres at a total investment of SR100 billion ($26.6 billion). The city will have the capacity to accommodate 80,000 people in addition to shopping and entertainment facilities. It will have hospitality facilities catering for up to a million visitors.

Kingdom Tower Jeddah will have retail facilities and conference halls at the top besides a five-star hotel, offices and deluxe residential units

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