Saudi Arabia secures funds to build world’s tallest tower

Despite the back­lash of low oil price in the world market and an economy that sends thousands of Filipino overseas workers back home, Saudi Arabia has secured financing for the construction of the $1.23-billion Jeddah Tow­er that will rival Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

A Saudi government press release last Sunday said the Jeddah Econom­ic Co. and Saudi Arabia’s Alinma Investment had signed a financing deal for 8.4 billion Saudi riyals (or $2.2 billion) to build Jeddah City, including the sky-piercing tower.

The project is cur­rently built up to the 26th floor, it added. The 3,280-feet (1-kilometer) skyscraper is scheduled for completion in 2020. The Burj Khalifa, by compari­son, stands at 2,716 feet, or 827 meters.

“With this deal, we will reach new, as yet un­heard-of highs in real-es­tate development, and will fulfill the company’s ob­jective of creating a world-class urban center that of­fers an advanced lifestyle, so that Jeddah may have a new iconic landmark that attracts people from all walks of society with comprehensive services and a multitude of uses,” said Mounib Hammoud, CEO of Jeddah Economic.

Previously dubbed the Kingdom Tower, the building will boast of 200 floors and will overlook the Red Sea. Construct­ing it will require about 5.7 million square feet of concrete and 80,000 tons of steel.

Building a structure that tall, particularly on the coast, where saltwater could potentially damage it, is no easy feat. The foundations, which will be 200 ft. (60 m.) deep, need to be able to with­stand the saltwater of the nearby ocean. As a result, Advanced Construction Technology Services will test the strength of differ­ent concretes.

Wind load is anoth­er issue for buildings of this size. To counter this challenge, the tower will change shape every few floors so that the wind loads go round the build­ing and be as extreme as on a really solid block, said Gordon Gill, a part­ner at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the design architects for the project.

Delivering concrete to higher floors will also be a challenge. Possibly, engi­neers could use similar methods to those em­ployed when building the Burj Khalifa; in which 6 million cubic feet of con­crete was pushed through a single pump, usually at night when temperatures were low enough to en­sure that it would set.

Though ambitious, building the Jeddah Tower should be feasible, accord­ing to Sang Dae Kim, the director of the Council on Tall Buildings.

“At this point, we can build a tower that is 1 km, maybe 2 km. Any higher than that and we will have to do a lot of homework,” he said.