By Sarah Firshein www.curbed.com
No sooner did pro spiderman Alain Robert scale Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the world’s tallest tower, did the port city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, decide to stick it to the poor guy.
Just greenlight: the Kingdom Tower, which, when complete, will stand one mile high—it takes 12 minutes to ascend to the top via elevator—and be filled with a mix of commercial, residential, and hotel space.
As far as building teetering skyscrapers in the Middle East goes, developer Kingdom Holding knew exactly who to turn to: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture—architect Adrian Smith had a hand in the design of Burj Khalifa.
Turns out Kingdom Tower will be the very obvious, hulking, and hard-to-miss epicenter of a larger urban development expected to accommodate 80,000 people and cost more than $26B.
