I disagree, there is no way the Dubai economy can ever surpass the Saudi economy. Saudi Arabia's population is 10 times larger and it's GDP five times so. Your contention that Dubai uses it's wealth more effectively is also, in my estimation, wrong; Dubai, as you probably know, has become a by word for excess. A lot of Dubai's wealth has been made by catering to Saudi clients.

ALL oil producing nations are trying to diversify their economies, Dubai chose to welcome tourists, Saudi Arabia is trying to do so by developing other sectors, IT in particular.

Also, Jeddah and Dubai do not compare. Jeddah has been the gateway for Makkah and Madina for, nearest makes no difference, 1,300 years and while you might not be interested in moving here there are more than enough people willing to invest in Jeddah. And even though I do not doubt for a second that the tower is intended solely to stoke Waleed bin Talal's ego, I also do not doubt that it is also financially feasible.

It's been quite some time since I've seen so much ignorance masquerading as fact packed in a single post. Thank you for the brain exercise. :-)

i jus cant wait to see it built........

Seems a bit obscene.

Dunno, maybe it wasn't possible to be built, not that it will get built anyway.

It's interesting but not surprising that Emaar was chosen as the developer.

I know this post is as old as my left foot toe nail but are you really comparing a city to a whole country here ?

Pfft, we'll see what happens, but I doubt it'll be built as is.

Intially I shared your sentiments but it's beginning to look like it will definately happen.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/biz/insi...ction=business

The saudi king certainly has the money! Also see post #46. I posted this because the link in that post doesn't seem to be working right now.

Here's the text just in case: Taken from Kahleej Times,

Emaar to Build World’s Tallest Tower in Saudi Bruce Stanley
14 June 2009 DUBAI — Emaar Properties, which is already building the world’s tallest skyscraper in Dubai, has won a chance to outdo itself with a tower rising to a height of more than a kilometre — this one in Saudi Arabia. Kingdom Holding Company, a Saudi property company, announced on Saturday that it has picked Emaar to build a 100 billion riyal ($26.6 billion) mixed-use real estate project called Jeddah Kingdom City and Kingdom Tower, outside the Red Sea city of Jeddah. The tower will be “the highest in the world,” Kingdom said in a news release.
The project is a coup for Emaar and comes just two days after another Dubai developer, Arabtec Holding, won a separate construction contract in Jeddah worth two billion riyals. Dubai’s construction firms have been eager to seek opportunities outside the emirate, where the collapse in the local property market is still unfolding. Many see 
Saudi Arabia, with its large and expanding population, as a juicy market.
No Emaar official was immediately available for comment.
Emaar, the Middle East’s biggest developer, beat out four competitors for the massive Kingdom project, which is to include residences for 80,000 people as well as offices and commercial facilities. The project’s centrepiece, Kingdom Tower, will rise from a base containing stores and a conference centre.
Kingdom Chairman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his Emaar counterpart Mohammed bin Ali Al Abbar signed a joint-venture agreement for the project on Saturday, the news release said.
Emaar is currently building the Burj Dubai, an 800 metre-tall tower that ranks as the world’s tallest man-made structure so far.
However, Emaar’s finances have suffered. The company’s net profit for the first quarter of this year plunged by 74 per cent from the same period last year.
Its shares, which closed 0.76 per cent lower on Thursday at Dh3.90 on the Dubai Financial Market, could get a big boost from Kingdom’s announcement. Emaar shares have risen by 73.9 per cent so far this year, off a 52-week low of Dh1.77 on February 3. They traded at an historical high of Dh29.10 in September 2005.
bruce@khaleejtimes.com

PS My caculator says 1100 meters = 3608.92 Feet

Somehow I feel this should be built somewhere in Russia.

Almost looks like it belongs in Vegas.


We'll take it!

so is there anyway we can get some more news on this? bc this is frickin absolutely amazing and i wanna see this get built

http://aftergradavenues.files.wordpr...fice-space.jpg

Yeahhhhhh... If you could just not bump dead thread without information that'd be just greeeeeeaaaaaaattttt...

Wrong thread title, the official and correct name of the tower is Kingdom Tower.

i'm interested to see how this ends up. i still am VERY pessimistic about this one :p would love to see it built 1.1km though.

anybody?

Well, there's no new news to be found on the topic. I wouldn't worry about it; especially at this place, as soon as anything important is announced, it will be duly noted here. They haven't even started building it yet, so it's going to take years for it to be completed, if indeed it is completed. "Patience" is the word to use here.

alright, thanks man

Is this why they lowered the height?

A proposal for this tower



SOM's new tower in mystery location


The tower integrates programmatic and building systems into a structure of proven technology which uses familiar structural concepts in a new way. The radial geometry of the plan and elongated conical form have a powerful singularity and represent a crystalline geometric order containing 290,000 m2 of primarily residential program area. This vertical community is supplemented by limited amounts of office, hotel, service apartment and ancillary amenity areas including retail, a school, prayer area, and post office.

The form is the result of an iterative series of analytical structural exercises to optimise the tower for strength and wind performance. A single tapering conical concrete wall spreads outwards towards the perimeter, which in turn supports cantilevered floors containing the program. Intermittent, multi-story high setbacks occur at amenity floors to facilitate wind disruption, which in combination with the tessellated shape, reduces vortex shedding.

The hollow core exploits the natural stack effect to benefit the project. Like traditional wind towers, the spire captures natural forces generated by temperature differentials between the interior and exterior, and between high and low. Depending on the outside temperatures, a positive stack effect (drawing air in for top exhaust), or reverse stack effect (top draw for low exhaust), or double stack effect (drawing air at the midpoint to exhaust at the top and bottom) would provide cooler air to naturally ventilate the building. In addition to the benefits of natural ventilation, air velocities produced by the stack effect would drive wind turbines to generate energy for the building.

Other sustainable design features include high level wind turbines and solar collection arrays at the uppermost 200m for energy generation, no dedicated air-conditioning of internal atria, water recovery and conservation, heat recovery, tempered transitional spaces, a building form that minimises solar exposure, high performance facades, and efficient exterior shading.


http://static.worldarchitecturenews....Spire_1_lg.jpg

http://static.worldarchitecturenews....2_aSpire_2.jpg

http://static.worldarchitecturenews....3_aSpire_3.jpg

http://static.worldarchitecturenews....4_aSpire_4.jpg

I have it on a good source that this might not be the most recent design. . .

. . .