Saudi Arabia is planning the world’s largest skyscrapers in the new city of NEOM valued at $500 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The sources said that the city, the brainchild of Saudi Crown Prince and Ruler Mohammed bin Salman, will include skyscrapers that run from the Red Sea coast to the desert.
The skyscrapers would house a mix of residential, retail, and office space running from the Red Sea coast into the desert.
The plan is a shift from the concept announced last year of building a string of developments linked by underground hyper-speed rail, into a long continuous structure, the people said.
The buildings will boast 500 meters (1,640 feet) tall, stretching horizontally for dozens of miles, Bloomberg reported.
Designers were instructed to work on a half-mile-long prototype, Neom employees said.
If it goes forward in full, each structure would be larger than the world’s current biggest buildings, most of which are factories or malls rather than residential communities.
“The Line” project – the first implementation of the car-free linear city to form the backbone of Neom – could cost up to $200 billion to build, Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last year, though that was before the plan changed to include gigantic horizontal buildings.
Announced in 2017, Neom is Prince Mohammed’s plan to turn a remote region of the country into a high-tech semi-autonomous state that re-imagines urban life. It’s part of his plans to attract foreign investment and help diversify the Saudi economy away from a reliance on oil sales.
