Builders at Saudi Binladin Group have taken Jeddah Tower to the 121st floor and about 486 meters, on a project that is meant to become the first building taller than 1,000 meters when it is finished in 2028.
The new milestone was reported on October 29 by MEP Middle East, a trade magazine for the region’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing contractors.
According to the magazine, construction has now reached the 121st floor, and the tower stands at approximately 486 meters above the city of Jeddah, on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast.
On October 8, New Atlas counted 118 floors and a height of 474 meters. Between those two reports, about three weeks apart, the skyscraper gained three floors and roughly 12 meters.
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Photos shared by local residents on Wikimedia Commons show the pace of the climb. In May 2025, the concrete core rose behind a row of palm trees; by February 2026, cranes topped a much taller shaft.
Already taller than New York’s highest homes
At its current height, the tower has already passed some famous skyscrapers. MEP Middle East says it is now taller than the Central Park Tower in New York and the Wuhan Greenland Centre in China.
New Atlas noted in early October that the Saudi tower had entered the list of the 15 tallest buildings in the world, while still being less than halfway to its final height.
Both milestones were reached while cranes are still at work on the top. The building already counts as a supertall skyscraper today, and it is planned to more than double in height before it is done.
A target above one kilometer
The final height of Jeddah Tower has not been revealed in detail. What is known is that it is expected to exceed 1,000 meters, or one kilometer, which no building has ever reached.
MEP Middle East describes the project as envisioned to become the world’s tallest man-made structure, not just the tallest building, once its spire is in place.
MEP Middle East reports that the project will have 167 floors and will stand at least 180 meters taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the current holder of the world record.
New Atlas compares it to the One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the United States. Once complete, the Saudi tower should be about twice as tall.
The same architect as the Burj Khalifa
The tower, also known as JEC Tower and formerly Kingdom Tower, was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, a Chicago studio that specializes in skyscrapers.
Adrian Smith was responsible for the design of the Burj Khalifa when he worked at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, New Atlas points out. His new firm also designed the Central Park Tower, which the Saudi building has just overtaken.
Inside, 59 elevators are planned to move people between a luxury hotel, office space and apartments, along with tourist areas that include what is billed as the world’s highest observation point.
Thirteen years since the first works
Construction of Jeddah Tower began in 2013, with Saudi Binladin Group contracted as the main builder. It has been one of the slowest supertall projects of its generation.
Technical challenges tied to its unprecedented height caused the work to halt in January 2018, MEP Middle East reports, when the tower had 63 floors. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the restart even further.
New Atlas adds that several reports linked the long pause to the political purges that shook the Saudi elite at the time, and not only to engineering problems.
A $1.9 billion contract to finish the job
The project came back to life in late 2024. In October of that year, a contract worth $1.9 billion was signed with Saudi Binladin Group to complete the tower, according to MEP Middle East.
Since then, floors have been added at a steady pace. As of October 2026, the tower had climbed to 121 floors, and completion is scheduled for 2028.
New Atlas places the expected finish in late 2028. That leaves about two years to add dozens of floors and the spire that will take the building past the one-kilometer mark.
The heart of a new district
The skyscraper is part of the Kingdom City development in the Jeddah Economic City district, on the northern coast of Jeddah, which is planned in three phases.
Jeddah Tower is the first phase of the district, which spans 5.2 square kilometers, MEP Middle East reports. New Atlas names Kingdom Holding as the developer, and the tower’s other name, JEC Tower, comes from Jeddah Economic Company.
The district is planned to include luxury apartments, five-star hotels, cultural attractions, offices and conference centers, as a business hub to attract foreign investors.
A survivor among Saudi giga-projects
The tower’s progress stands out in Saudi Arabia. New Atlas notes that other ambitious projects in the kingdom, such as the Mukaab and The Line, have fallen by the wayside in recent years.
That makes Jeddah Tower one of the most visible tests of whether the country can deliver a record-breaking structure on schedule, after more than a decade of delays.
How the race for height is changing
Skylines elsewhere keep climbing too, but on a different scale. The new tallest building in Texas, the 1,025-foot Waterline in Austin, is shorter than what Jeddah Tower already reaches today.
The Burj Khalifa has held the title of world’s tallest building since it opened in 2010. If the Saudi schedule holds, the record will move from Dubai to Jeddah within two years.
What comes next
The next big moments will come when the tower passes the 500-meter mark and, later, the height of the Burj Khalifa itself.
For the engineers and workers on site, more than 40 floors still separate the tower from its planned total. Will Jeddah Tower finally reach one kilometer in 2028, after a construction story that began 15 years earlier?
