The port city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, located on the Red Sea coast, is expected to develop $90 billion worth of real estate and infrastructure projects by the year 2030. This information has been disclosed in an analysis carried out by the global property consultant, Knight Frank. According to them, the city is expected to develop approximately 1.4 million square metres of retail space by 2030.
Faisal Durrani, Head of Middle East Research at Knight Frank, said, “With some 89,000 new homes, 250,000 square metres (sqm) of offices and nearly 1.4 million sqm metres of retail space, the city will be significantly revitalised by the end of the decade.”
According to Knight Frank’s analysis, nearly $14 billion of the total spend is dedicated to new infrastructure, including a new ‘land bridge’ that will involve the construction of 1,500 km of railway lines linking towns and cities between the eastern and western parts of Saudi while $7 billion has been earmarked for Jeddah Islamic Port expansion, including raising container capacity to 20 million TEUs.
Another contributor to the project pipeline is the government’s focus on improving and enhancing the habitability and liveability of Saudi cities.
Yazeed Hijazi, Associate Partner, Real Estate Strategy & Consulting KSA, said: “With nearly $3.3 billion earmarked for wellbeing projects, the residents of Jeddah are set to benefit from improvements to the city’s leisure, cultural, education and healthcare facilities.”
Moreover, with growth in Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector, the retail industry is set to accelerate further.
“The popularity of Jeddah Season and the Jeddah F1, combined with the ultra-fast and modern rail links to the Holy Cities means Jeddah’s potential as an international tourist destination are only now starting to grow,” concluded Mr Durrani.
