Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa champion of all things biggest, longest and most expensive, will soon have some competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia.
A Saudi government press release on Sunday said, “Saudi Arabia has agreed a massive investment deal to fund the world’s next tallest building and the first to break one-kilometer tall, will known as the Jeddah Tower, or Kingdom 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 Kingdom Tower is being constructed in Jeddah, a port city on the Red Sea.
Burj Khalifa, 2,716 feet tall, the world’s tallest building, could be stripped of its Guinness title if Saudi Arabia succeeds in its plans to construct the 1 kilometer tall Jeddah Tower.
Despite warnings from the IMF that Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves are in free fall and that the country could run out of money in five years, it seems the Jeddah Tower will go ahead after 8.4 billion Saudi riyals ($2.2 billion) real estate deal was signed to fund its completion.
It is not the first time a so-called “prestige project” has bring an economic uncertainty in the Middle East. Just a few months ago Dubai unveiled the $1.5 billion Burj al Khalifa, it had been forced to borrow cash from Abu Dhabi to deal with its debts.