Colossal contracts

King Abdullah Financial District will create a new central point for the city of Riyadh.

The last two months have seen major steps taken forward in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabia capital.
 
The start of October proved very bright for the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), as the firm picked up a massive construction contract for 30 parcels of land within the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) from developer Rayadah Investment Company.

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The deal is worth US $3.73 billion (SR13.98 billion) and will see SBG construct the lion’s share of the development.

Rayadah’s KAFD project manager Waleed Aleisa said the fast-tracked contract requires SBG to complete 27 of the 30 parcels by March 2012 and the remaining three parcels by November 2012.

“It’s an enormous challenge and Binladin might be the only contractor in Saudi Arabia capable of producing 30 parcels in 38 months,” he said.

“We didn’t want to hire more than one contractor for the job because we wanted to reduce the complexity of the logistics and basically Binladin is the most qualified.”

The contract includes construction of two of the tallest towers in KAFD – the 303m World Trade Centre and the 240m GCC Bank Tower – which will be among the last three parcels to be delivered.

When the contract is completed, around 70% of KAFD will be finished, with the remaining 30% to be developed according to market need.

Other firms are also getting involved in the work ongoing at KAFD. Gulf Technical Construction Company (GTCC), the civil contracting subsidiary of Drake and Scull International, is forming a joint venture with Saudi Oger to bid for construction of the 400m tall Capital Market Authority (CMA) tower in Riyadh.

“We were approached by Saudi Oger to form a joint venture and bring our technical expertise in high rise construction to the table,” said GTCC executive director Saleh Muradweji.

The tower is being developed by CMA and will be the tallest in the KAFD project.
 
Housing, as ever, remains an important lynchpin in the Saudi Arabia construction market, with a report from Naseba suggesting that across KSA as a whole, the real estate construction market is worth around $586 billion.

As a result, the 3 million m² Nasmat Al Riyadh development, which will contain educational facilities, commercial outlets, and 4200 housing units, took a step closer to completion with the awarding of the supervision consultancy contract.

November saw Fayez Zuhair Architectural and Engineering pick up the honours on the $1.6 billion project, with a construction contract to be awarded in 2010.

Meanwhile, development on the Riyadh Metro is now progressing. Work began at the start of November, according to the Arriyadh Development Authority, which is developing the project.

Phase one of the project will see the construction of a 25km route from the northern side of the ring road to the southern side, while the 14km phase two will stretch from east to west. Thirty districts are expected to be covered by the project.