Enabling and excavation work will start in April on two new mixed-use developments at King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD).

The work will start after US-based Fxfowle Architects finished schematic designs in February last month. The two unnamed projects will have 1.65 million square-metres of built-up-area and are known as parcels 5.05 and 4.11.

Fxfowle has prepared designs for four other plots at KAFD. Those plots are joined by pedestrian bridges and are considered a single mixed-use development. UK-based Buro Happold is the engineer. US-based HM White Site Architects is the landscape architect.

The local Saudi Binladin Group began construction work on the 1.98 million square-metre parcel of land in 2009 and is scheduled to be complete in 2011. The components of the project are as follows: 

• Parcel 2.09 (residential)
• Parcel 2.14 (undetermined)
• Parcel  4.07 (88 metre-tall commercial/retail tower)
• Parcel 4.08 (133 metre-tall  commercial/retail tower)

The UK’s Henning Larsen Architects designed the masterplan for the entire KAFD project.

Located on a 1.6 million square-metre site north of Riyadh, KAFD will offer commercial and residential districts together with hospitality, retail, recreational, cultural and educational facilities.  A monorail will link the entire development.

KAFD is being developed by the local Al-Rayadah Investment Company, which is the investment arm of the state-controlled Public Pension Agency (MEED 5:3:10).