Skyscraper milestone: Why Saudi Arabia’s 100-floor Jeddah Tower may be the project that keeps its promise

The skyscraper now rising outside Jeddah is doing more than climbing toward a record. It is also becoming a test of whether one of Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious visions can still be delivered on time. Jeddah Tower has reached its 100th floor this week, a symbolic moment after years of interruptions. Yet its architect says this is the project that remained grounded in practicality, even as other headline-grabbing schemes in the kingdom have faced uncertainty. That contrast is now central to the tower’s significance.

Why this milestone matters now

Jeddah Tower is set to become the world’s first kilometre-tall building, overtaking Dubai’s Burj Khalifa once complete. Construction first began in 2013, but progress stopped and restarted several times because of financial issues, the Covid-19 pandemic and technical challenges. The project also lost its contractor, Binladin Group, after the owner was arrested during Saudi Arabia’s 2017 corruption purges. Its developer, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, was detained in the same period. After construction officially restarted in early 2025, the tower is now expected to be finished in 2028.

That timeline matters because this skyscraper is emerging as a rare example of continuity in a landscape where prestige projects can be vulnerable to delays, redesigns and pauses. The 100-floor mark is not just a construction update. It is a signal that the tower has moved beyond the phase of symbolic ambition and into a more measurable stage of delivery.

What lies beneath the tower’s momentum

Gordon Gill, co-founder of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the tower stands apart because it is not a speculative gesture. He described it as “a reality” that has already been established and simply needed “the impetus to finish it. ” In his view, its strength lies in “clarity and reality, ” shaped by constructability, economy and time. That framing helps explain why the skyscraper has resumed as other high-profile Saudi projects have become more complicated.

Gill also said there are lessons for architects in knowing when a project is unrealistic. That comment matters because the tower’s advance is happening in a climate where scale alone no longer guarantees confidence. The difference, he argues, is that Jeddah Tower was always rooted in known conditions rather than in a purely visionary drawing. In practical terms, that makes the building not only taller, but more legible as a project.

Expert perspective on how high is possible

Gill’s most striking assessment is that going far beyond one kilometre is already technically feasible with today’s knowledge. He said he and his team have looked at a mile and even two kilometres. That is not a prediction that such towers will rise immediately; it is an argument that the engineering ceiling is higher than many assume. On the same point, he said Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower was “the one that was capable of meeting its deadline, ” underscoring how execution can matter as much as ambition.

Bob Forest, managing partner at the architecture firm behind the tower, called the 100-floor mark “a great milestone and one of many to come. ” He also said the project is “progressing quickly beyond that, ” reinforcing the idea that momentum has shifted. For a skyscraper that has already endured years of disruption, that language signals not just progress, but a return to credibility.

Regional consequences beyond Jeddah

The tower’s progress carries weight far beyond one building site. It sits within a broader Saudi push to diversify the economy, with major projects intended to redefine the country’s urban and economic future. But the latest construction milestones also arrive amid questions around other developments, including NEOM and the Mukaab. Some contracts linked to NEOM were recently reported to have been canceled, while Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund, said no project in NEOM has been canceled and that some have merely been delayed because they are not on the critical path.

That makes Jeddah Tower unusually important as a benchmark. If it reaches completion in 2028, it will offer a visible counterpoint to the perception that huge projects are vulnerable to delay. It will also reinforce the idea that not every megaproject is equal in delivery risk. In that sense, the skyscraper is becoming a case study in the difference between paper ambition and buildable design.

For Saudi Arabia, the tower’s ascent is now about more than height. It is about whether a project that paused repeatedly can still finish as promised, and what that would say about the future of the kingdom’s most audacious plans. If Jeddah Tower can keep climbing on schedule, what other ambitions might suddenly look less impossible?