Building a new Riyadh

Contractors are currently doing basement work on stage one of the project.

Unaffected by the global economic downturn, Saudi Arabia is furiously constructing its King Abdullah Financial District, a project destined to become a new city centre for Riyadh. Now with a mere 30 months left to finish the bulk of the work, the pace is fast and the challenge immense.

W hen Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud takes a keen personal interest in the success of a particular project, you can almost guarantee it will be seen through to completion without delay.

Such is the case with the US $10 billion (SR37.5 billion) King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), a project which not only bears his name, but will send a definitive signal to the rest of the world that the kingdom is well on its way to modernity.

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As the epicentre of Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning financial services sector, KAFD is expected to redefine Riyadh from the nation’s rather boring administrative capital to a sleek business and entertainment hub.

Centrally located on Riyadh’s King Fahd Highway, the development will feature more than 40 towers with all the facilities, amenities, utilities and transport networks you would come to expect in a well-designed city of the 21st century.

The catch, is that the majority of this 1.6 million m² project is to be constructed in just 3.5 years; and with King Abdullah receiving regular progress reports, those involved know the pressure is on to deliver.

The company in charge is Rayadah Investment, an arm of the government’s Public Pensions Agency (PPA), which aside from taking care of social security is also charged with investing huge sums of money in real estate development.

After finalising a master plan design by Denmark’s Henning Larsen, Rayadah awarded four design and build contracts for the first 10 parcels of land. Saudi Binladin Group picked up four mixed-use parcels, while Saudi Construction, El Seif Engineering and Saudi Oger each, picked up two.

Construction started last November and with a fast-tracked contract period of 30 months this first stage is expected to finish around mid 2011.

Meanwhile, Rayadah is on the verge of awarding stage two - a multi-billion dollar design and build contract for another 30 parcels, which will make up “the bulk of the project” says Rayadah’s project manager Waleed Aleisa.

“It will probably be awarded late September or early October. We’ll most likely go with one contractor for the whole thing because we want to make sure there are no conflicting logistical problems.”