Piling and excavation work starts on National Bank of Kuwait headquarters

23 January 2012

Ground work will take six months to complete

The local Edrasis Middle East Contracting Company has started work on the piling and excavation work for the planned 300-metre-tall National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) headquarters building.

Edrasis Middle East, a joint venture of the local Ahmadiah Contracting Company and Greece’s Edrasis Psalidas, was officially awarded the contract in mid-December last year and has already started work.

“Piling and excavation work has already started and is expected to take six months to complete. After that the main construction package is expected to be tendered,” says a source in Kuwait.

The 70-storey tower, will be located in the Sharq area of Kuwait city. The project is being developed by the National al-Shaab Real Estate Company. In October 2010, NBK agreed to acquire the real estate company, as well as all its physical and legal assets, including the plot of land on which the new headquarters will be constructed.

The tower has been designed by the UK-based architecture firm Foster & Partners. Bahrain-based Projacs International is project manager and the local SSH International is providing consultancy services on the development.

The new headquarters is the second financial tower planned for construction in Kuwait City. The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has set a new tender closing date of 12 February for the contract to build its estimated $200m headquarters building in Kuwait City.

The client prequalified three local contractors and five joint ventures in March 2011. Each is made up of an international company and a local partner, to participate in the tender (MEED 25:3:11).

The prequalified groups are:

  • Ahmadiah Contracting Company (local)
  • Al-Habtoor Leighton (Australia/UAE)/Alghanim International General Trading & Contracting Company
  • Arabtec Construction (UAE)/Combined Group Contracting Company (local)
  • China Railway 18th Bureau Group/Mohammed Abdulmoshin al-Kharafi & Sons (local)
  • First United General Trading & Contracting Company (local)
  • Rizzani De Eccher (Italy)/Six Construct (Belgium)/ Al-Bahar Construction General Trading & Contracting Company (local)
  • Syed Hamid Behbani & Sons (local)
  • Tasyapi Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret (Turkey)/Al-Ahlia Contracting Group (local)

The proposed building will be a 220m-tall tower in the centre of Kuwait City, which will include an auditorium and other public facilities in a six-storey podium. The structure will cover a total area of 130,000 square metres.

The tower will be the fourth-tallest in Kuwait when it is completed.

The building was designed by the local KEO International Consultants, which was awarded the design contract in 2007 (MEED 28:9:07).



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