The joint venture of Belgium’s Six Construct and the local Al-Saad General Contracting has won the estimated SR1.2bn ($300m) contract to build the new Kempinski hotel on the Jeddah corniche in Saudi Arabia.

The construction package involves building a 240-metre, 65-storey high five-star hotel tower that will contain 242 hotel rooms and 104 serviced apartments. The tower has a total built up area of 79,624 square metres and the site area is about 9,710 sq m.

Two other groups were competing for the deal at the final stages of the negotiations. They were a joint venture of the Lebanon’s Saudi Arabian Construction Company (ACC) and Italy’s Pizzarotti Rizzani de Eccher and UAE-based Drake & Scull International.

The developer received bids from seven contracting groups in March last year. The hotel tower was designed by the US-based Perkins and Will, and the local Mohamad Harasani Architects. The local Amias Real Estate Company is the client.