Construction Intelligence

Construction on The Mukaab site began with earth-moving operations following the project’s February 2023 announcement by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. As of the latest verified reports, excavation has reached 86 percent completion, with over 10 million cubic meters of earth moved from the al-Qirawan site in northwest Riyadh. The total excavation scope encompasses 40 million cubic meters of material, all of which is being repurposed to minimize landfill waste. To put 40 million cubic meters in perspective, that volume could fill 16,000 Olympic swimming pools or cover the entirety of Central Park in Manhattan to a depth of roughly 12 meters. The earthmoving operation ranks among the largest in global construction history, exceeding the excavation volumes associated with the Panama Canal expansion and comparable to the total material movement involved in constructing major hydroelectric dams.

The al-Qirawan district’s subsurface conditions have demanded a multi-stage excavation strategy. Surface layers of windblown Arabian sand give way to intermediate cemented desert formations known locally as sarooj, followed by deeper limestone and sandstone substrates. Each geological layer requires different excavation equipment and techniques. Conventional hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders handle the sand and loose soils, while hydraulic breakers and controlled blasting are deployed for cemented rock formations. The excavation depth varies across the 400-by-400-meter footprint, with the deepest cuts occurring beneath the central pile grid and the shallowest at the periphery where grade transitions connect to surrounding neighborhood infrastructure.

Foundation and Piling Operations

Piling operations are advancing with HSSG Foundation Contracting having installed 1,000 of the planned 1,200 construction piles as of September 2025, representing 83 percent completion of the below-grade structural program. These piles anchor through variable upper soil layers into stable bedrock of the Arabian Shield, creating the structural platform for what will become the world’s largest raft foundation. The raft foundation must distribute the extraordinary weight of 1 million tonnes of structural steel — the subject of what is already the world’s largest structural steel order at a value exceeding $1 billion — across 1,200 discrete pile connection points. Each pile must be individually load-tested to verify that it achieves the design capacity required by the structural engineering calculations, with test loads often exceeding twice the anticipated working load to establish adequate safety margins.

The piling program commenced in Q2 2024, meaning HSSG Foundation Contracting achieved 1,000 pile installations in approximately 15 months. This translates to an average installation rate of roughly 67 piles per month, or approximately two to three piles per working day. Given the complexity of deep foundation work in desert substrates — including drilling through cemented formations, placing reinforcement cages, and pouring concrete under controlled conditions — this rate represents a significant mobilization of equipment and labor. The remaining 200 piles could be completed within approximately three to four months at historical rates.

The Contractor Ecosystem

The contractor ecosystem assembled for The Mukaab and New Murabba represents a global concentration of mega-project expertise. AtkinsRealis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), headquartered in Montreal, serves as masterplan architect providing advisory, architecture, masterplanning, and engineering services. Bechtel, the US engineering giant with a heritage spanning the Hoover Dam and the Channel Tunnel, manages the masterplan and infrastructure delivery under a contract signed in August 2023. Aecom provides project management services for all buildings within the development except the Mukaab itself. Parsons Corporation was awarded a 60-month Infrastructure Lead Design Consultant contract in January 2026 for infrastructure, public buildings, landscape, and the public realm. Arup serves as lead designer for the 46,010-seat New Murabba Stadium, which will host FIFA 2034 World Cup fixtures.

This multi-firm organizational structure requires extraordinary coordination discipline. The interfaces between design (AtkinsRealis), project management (Bechtel and Aecom), infrastructure design (Parsons), specialist foundation work (HSSG), and venue design (Arup) create dozens of contractual and technical interfaces that must be managed without allowing scope gaps or conflicting instructions to reach the construction site.

The January 2026 Suspension

Significant developments occurred in January 2026 when construction of the Mukaab was suspended as part of a broader Saudi review of Vision 2030 megaprojects. Work beyond soil excavation and pilings has been paused while the project undergoes feasibility reassessment. The suspension reflects Saudi Arabia’s strategic pivot toward “a more staggered and gradual approach to project delivery and the investment cycle,” aimed at containing cost pressures, reducing economic overheating, and managing fiscal pressures across the Kingdom’s ambitious infrastructure program.

The suspension does not affect all construction activity. Excavation and piling operations continue, preserving the critical-path foundation work that must be completed before any superstructure can begin. Infrastructure design also continues, as evidenced by the Parsons Corporation ILDC contract awarded the same month as the suspension announcement. This selective approach suggests that Saudi authorities view the below-grade and infrastructure work as essential preparatory investment regardless of the Mukaab building’s final timeline.

Phased Delivery Strategy

The construction timeline now encompasses four distinct phases that extend the project’s delivery horizon from the original 2030 target to 2040. Phase 1 targets 8,000 homes for 35,000 residents by 2030, establishing the first habitable communities within the 19-square-kilometer development. Phase 2A aligns with the FIFA 2034 World Cup, with the New Murabba Stadium serving as a fixed-deadline anchor. Phase 2B extends to 2035 with additional neighborhood buildout. Phase 3 completes the remaining communities plus a new airport and high-speed train station by 2040, ultimately accommodating 400,000 residents across 18 neighborhoods.

The phasing strategy transforms New Murabba from a single-delivery megaproject into a managed urban development program. Each phase produces usable, inhabitable outcomes — a critical distinction from projects that produce no value until final completion. The FIFA 2034 World Cup provides an immovable external deadline that ensures at least the stadium and its surrounding infrastructure will be delivered regardless of broader project adjustments.

Steel and Superstructure Requirements

When construction resumes on the Mukaab’s superstructure, the project will require the erection of 1 million tonnes of structural steel, valued at over $1 billion and constituting the world’s largest structural steel order for a single building. The steel mega-frame must form the 400-meter cube geometry while supporting 2 million square meters of floor space across an estimated 70 floors, an internal spiral tower, and a 300-meter holographic dome. The structural challenge of creating a cube — rather than the tapered forms typical of supertall buildings — means that wind loads on the flat 160,000-square-meter faces (400 meters by 400 meters) cannot be reduced through aerodynamic shaping, demanding a structural system of unprecedented robustness.

Logistics Infrastructure

The scale of The Mukaab’s construction has required purpose-built logistics infrastructure. A temporary bridge crossing King Khalid Road connects the construction site to material staging areas, eliminating approximately 800,000 truck movements on public roads during the earthworks phase alone. This bridge — itself a significant civil engineering structure — keeps heavy construction vehicles off Riyadh’s public road network, reducing congestion, dust, noise, road damage, and traffic safety risks for the surrounding al-Qirawan and al-Malqa neighborhoods.

Construction by the Numbers

The following figures summarize the verified construction metrics for The Mukaab as of the most recent reporting period:

Safety Protocols and Workforce Management

Construction safety at the Mukaab site operates under Saudi Arabia’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards as enforced by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, supplemented by the internal safety management systems of each contractor within the ecosystem. The scale of the workforce — estimated at several thousand personnel during peak excavation and piling operations — demands systematic safety planning that goes beyond standard construction site practices.

Heat stress management is the single most critical safety consideration on any Riyadh construction site. Summer temperatures routinely exceed 48 degrees Celsius, with ground-level temperatures on exposed construction surfaces reaching 60 degrees or higher. Saudi labor law prohibits outdoor work between 12:00 and 15:00 during summer months (June through August), a regulation that directly reduces productive hours during the hottest season. Beyond regulatory compliance, the Bechtel project management team implements tiered heat response protocols: mandatory hydration stations at 50-meter intervals across the excavation zone, shaded rest areas with cooling fans within three minutes’ walk of every work position, and medical monitoring teams trained in heat exhaustion and heat stroke response.

Fall protection, confined space entry procedures, and heavy equipment exclusion zones follow international best practice standards adapted to the site’s specific conditions. The deep excavation — reaching tens of meters below grade in the central pile zone — creates fall hazards at bench edges that require continuous guardrail systems, personal fall arrest equipment for workers within two meters of unprotected edges, and vehicle stop blocks at all ramp approaches to prevent trucks from overrunning bench edges into the excavation below. The piling operations introduce additional hazards including suspended loads during reinforcement cage placement, concrete pumping under pressure, and the operation of rotary drilling rigs with exposed rotating components.

Emergency response planning for a site of this scale requires on-site medical facilities capable of stabilizing injured workers before ambulance transfer to Riyadh hospitals. The al-Qirawan site’s location in northwest Riyadh provides reasonable proximity to major hospital facilities, but the site’s internal distances — 400 meters across the Mukaab footprint alone, with the broader New Murabba development extending across 19 square kilometers — mean that on-site ambulance response and triage capability is essential. Emergency evacuation routes from the deepest excavation levels to surface medical facilities must be maintained clear at all times, a requirement that constrains the layout of equipment staging areas, material stockpiles, and temporary structures within the excavation zone.

Construction Technology and Monitoring

The Mukaab’s construction employs digital construction management systems that track progress, quality, and safety across every active work zone. Building Information Modeling (BIM) coordinates the three-dimensional spatial relationships between the excavation profile, pile locations, utility corridors, and future superstructure elements, ensuring that below-grade work completed today aligns precisely with the structural connections required when superstructure erection begins. GPS-guided machine control on excavators verifies cut depths against design profiles in real time, reducing the survey verification effort and improving excavation accuracy to within centimeters of the design grade.

Drone-based photogrammetry provides weekly volumetric surveys of the excavation, calculating the actual volume of material removed and comparing it against the planned excavation profile. These surveys produce the verified progress data — including the 86 percent completion figure — that informs both project management reporting and external stakeholder communications. The volumetric accuracy of drone survey methods exceeds 98 percent when calibrated against ground control points established by precision GPS receivers. The combination of drone survey data, GPS machine control records, and BIM modeling creates a digital record of the entire below-grade construction that will serve as the as-built documentation for the foundation system throughout the building’s operational life.

External References

For independent verification of construction data cited on this page, see reporting from Construction Week Online and Middle East Eye, both of which have provided verified coverage of The Mukaab’s construction milestones.

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