Coming Soon In Jeddah: World's Tallest Tower

Come 2019 and Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, will move to the second position as Jeddah will open gates to the Kingdom Tower. At 3,280 foot, the building would be the first structure to reach the one-kilometer mark.

It was in 2015 that the UAE-based Jeddah Economic Company and Alinma Investment had signed a funding deal of $2.24 billion to complete the Jeddah Economic City project, which houses the Jeddah Tower.

PropGuide lists 10 interesting facts about this mile-high colossal tower:

Also known as the Kingdom Tower, the structure will also be a home to the highest observatory in the world. It will also have an outdoor balcony, with a diameter of 98-foot.

The foundation piles are equal to a 10-feet room that is 360 feet in length.

Apart from being an architecture marvel, the building is embedded with high-tech features, too. The structure would have high-performance exterior wall system which would reduce energy consumption by minimising the thermal conduction.

Almost 80,000 tonnes of steel will be used in the structure, with a thick coating of concrete.

The structure will host 59 elevators and 12 escalators, of which five will be double-decked. These elevators will be slower than the normal elevators as the air pressure would cause nausea. Moreover, only one out of three sky lobbies will have access to the top.

The total project cost is $1.23 Billion and will house 439 apartments, 200 hotel rooms and 2,205 car parking space.

As on December 31, 2016, 38 floors have been completely constructed and elevators and stair have reached to 49th floors.

According to the media reports, the project contractor Saudi Binladin Group suffered financially after a collapse in oil revenues from 2014, which resulted in delaying of the project. The contractor company belongs to the father of deceased Al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, and has constructed a number of buildings across Saudi Arabia in the past 80 years.