The building will be a 170-storey monster that will rise to over a kilometre, surpassing Dubai’s Burj Khalifa as the world’s highest building. 

This new skyscraper completely dwarfs New York City’s Freedom Tower, which is currently the fifth tallest in the world at 1,792 feet. Jeddah Tower rises to almost double the size and stands at a staggering 3,300 ft.

The building is due to be finished in 2018 and Mounib Hammoud, chief executive officer of Jeddah Economic Company, said he expects the project to be finished on time ‘now that the agreement has been signed and required funds secured’.

That means they will be building one floor every 4 days which is a mightily impressive rate of construction. Here’s an artists interpretation of what part of the building will look like:

Mounib Hammoud went on to say that ‘The overall layout of Jeddah Economic City is designed to accommodate a comprehensive, multipurpose environment, replete with aspects of a modern lifestyle over its 5.3 square kilometers, supported by world-class, state-of-the-art infrastructures.

‘The first phase, to be constructed over 1.5 square kilometers, will accommodate more than 3.3 million square meters of modern, multipurpose structures, which will form the nucleus of northern Jeddah’s downtown, bolstering the city’s standing in the world.’

This is a sensational piece of engineering which will eclipse anything that has been built before it. I for one cannot wait to see it when it’s complete.