London Shard Builder to Manage World’s Tallest Tower Development

Mace Group Ltd., the company that built London’s Shard skyscraper, was chosen to manage the development of the kilometer-high Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Mace and real estate consultant EC Harris Group Ltd. will jointly manage the $1.2 billion project, EC Harris’s parent company Arcadis NV (ARCAD), said today in a statement. Construction on the tower, set to be the world’s tallest, will begin later this year and is expected to be completed within 5 1/2 years, according to the statement.

“The Kingdom Tower is a landmark building that will clearly demonstrate Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to the world,” Keith Brooks, EC Harris’ head of property and social infrastructure, said in the statement.

The Kingdom Tower will eclipse today’s highest skyscraper, the 828-meter (2,700-foot) Burj Khalifa in Dubai, when completed in 2018. The skyscraper, about 50 floors higher than Burj Khalifa, will include a Four Seasons hotel, apartments, offices, three lobbies on the upper floors and the world’s highest observation deck on the 157th level.

The Kingdom Holding Co. (KINGDOM), the investment company 95 percent controlled by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, holds a third of Jeddah Economic Co. which owns the tower project.

The Shard, western Europe’s tallest building at 1,016 feet, was inaugurated in July.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Spillane in London at cspillane3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew Blackman at ablackman@bloomberg.net