The local office of KEO International has been awarded a contract to provide project management services for the design and construction of a mixed-use residential project in the Obhur district of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

KEO has been awarded a 48-month contract to oversee the design and construction of the real-estate development, which will include 240 residential towers, 1,200 villas, a five-star hotel, hospital, clinics, mosques, commercial district, schools and municipal buildings.

The development will cover a total area of 2.4 million square metres. The client for the project is the local Al-Rayadah Investment Company.

The client is expected to issue tenders for site enabling works and the infrastructure construction packages in February. Construction work on the scheme is expected to begin before the end of 2012.

The client, Al-Rayadah Investment Company, is becoming an increasingly major player in the kingdom’s construction sector. One of the largest developments that it is currently executing is the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) project in Riyadh.

KAFD is located on a 1.6 million sq m site north of Riyadh and will offer commercial and residential districts along with hospitality, retail and recreational facilities. The financial district is one of the largest megaprojects currently under construction in the kingdom, with more than $6.2bn-worth of construction contracts having already been awarded on the development.

Al-Rayadah is preparing to tender three new construction projects worth more than a total of $500m for the KAFD scheme by the end of June in 2012.

The client is preparing to issue tender documents for the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) tower, a museum and an aquarium project in the first two quarters of 2012.

Prequalified contractors have been asked to submit request for proposal for the estimated $266m Tadawul project, with tender documents for the development scheduled to be issued by the end of January. The 40-storey tower will cover a total area of 140,000 sq m. The UK-based Mace Group is the project manager and Japan’s Nikken Sekkei is the architect for the tower (MEED 21:12:12).