Contractors are preparing to submit prices on 14 April for the contract to build the 1-kilometre-high tower on the outskirts of Jeddah for the local Kingdom Holding.

The bidders include South Korea’s Samsung Corporation with Dubai-based Arabtec Construction, the local El-Seif Engineering & Contracting and Belgium’s Six Construct, the local Saudi Oger, and the local Saudi Binladin Group (SBG).

In March, Kingdom selected US-based Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture as the architect for the project (MEED 15:3:10).

Dubai-based Emaar Properties is managing the development of the tower for Kingdom Holdings. Emaar is also managing the entire 23-square-kilometre Jeddah Kingdom City, which will be built around Kingdom Tower.

If the tower goes ahead, it will replace Emaar’s Burj Khalifa in Dubai as the world’s tallest building.

The Burj Khalifa was designed by SOM before Adrian Smith left the firm to set up Smith & Gill. The tower was also built by three firms that are bidding for the contract to build the kilometre-tall tower. A joint venture of Samsung, Six Construct, and Arabtec was awarded the construction contract in late 2004.

Kingdom’s tower will also be more than 400 metres taller than Saudi Arabia’s tallest building, the 577-metre tall Makkah Clock Royal Tower, which will be finished in August this year. It is being built by another bidder for the Kingdom tower scheme, SBG. Construction on 70 of the hotel’s 76 storeys has now been completed (MEED 8:3:10).