The ambitious $50 billion New Murabba project has excavated 10 million cubic meters in preparation for construction as it works to meet a December 2030 deadline.
In a recent press release the New Murabba Development Company, a Public Investment Fund (PIF) company, reported that excavation at the Mukaab and surrounding podium sites has reached 86% completion, with over 10 million cubic meters of earth moved.
The Mukaab, a cube shaped building slated to be 400 meters in height, width and length able to fit 20 Empire State Buildings inside, is the centerpiece of what is essentially designed to be a new Riyadh town center.
As planned, when fully completed New Murabba will feature more than 27 million sq. km of floor area, 119,000 residential units, 9,000 hotel rooms, and 980,000 sq. m of retail space. The area will ultimately include 18 communities that each can house up to 35,000 residents, giving a maximum potential for 400,000. The Mukaab and its surrounding area will include entertainment venues, educational institutions, health care facilities and a 45,000-seat stadium.
New Murabba Development Company
A relative late-comer to Saudi giga projects, New Murabba CEO, Michael Dyke, recently told a tourism forum in Dubai that, “We have 2,283 days until the 31st of December 2030 and that will be the point by which the core downtown is online. The Mukaab sits at the heart of that and will be fully functioning.”
Dyke added that, New Murabba was looking for investors to supplement its PIF funding and that, in addition to housing 600,000+ people, it’s green space will be twice the size of New York’s Central Park. As a “smart city”, it will follow the 15-minute concept in urban planning for easy accessibility to all amenities.
According to Knight-Frank, Saudi Arabia is set to become the world’s biggest construction market with $164 billion worth of real estate contracts awarded in the last 8 years and the country’s total construction output value forecast to reach $181.5 billion by the end of 2028.
While rationalization of project spending is ongoing and may increasingly impact more mega and giga projects such as The Line, spending in Riyadh is likely to take precedence as it not only seeks to add almost 29,000 hotel rooms, 4.6 million square meters of office space and 340,000 homes by the start of the next decade but also prepares to host major global showcases such as the 2030 World Expo.
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