It is impossible to talk about Saudi Arabia’s history without referencing Diriyah. Founded in 1446 in the Wadi Hanifa valley on the western outskirts of Riyadh, the historic town was the first capital of the Al-Saud dynasty and the launchpad for the kingdom’s unification campaign at the turn of the 20th century. In recognition, its central Turaif district was inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage site in 2010.

Today, the mud-brick settlement, built in the distinctive Najdi architectural style, has lent its name to one of the world’s most ambitious transformative developments. Sensitively conserving and building on its historical importance, it has created a unique cultural, educational, residential and tourism hub in the capital.

With an official budget of some $63bn, Diriyah is one of Saudi Arabia’s five official gigaprojects. It has held this label since early 2023, when responsibility for its development was handed to Diriyah Company, a project company formed as a Public Investment Fund (PIF) subsidiary a year earlier.

Covering an area of 14 square kilometres, Diriyah is targeting a population of 100,000 by its stated completion date of 2030. With more than 40 hotels, nine museums, 400 luxury boutiques, 100-plus restaurants and multiple educational institutions, it hopes to draw in more than 50 million annual visits.

Progress since ground was first broken four years ago has been rapid. As of May 2024, more than SR53bn ($14.1bn)-worth of construction contracts had been awarded. Today, visitors to the area can see hundreds of mobile cranes, plant and piling equipment rising over the boundary wall.

“We are in a good place,” says Mohammed Saad, Diriyah Company’s chief development officer. “We’ve finished our essential underground infrastructure and civil works, the super basement and all the tunnels that connect the basements together.”

But the real work has only just begun. Saad says a further SR30bn-35bn is scheduled to be awarded by the end of 2024, rising to SR40bn-45bn in 2025. By the end of this year, the public can expect to see substantial above-ground construction, particularly on the western side of the gigaproject, providing more tangible evidence of its advancement, which until now has been primarily below ground.

This is not to say that any vertical assets will be particularly tall. Because of the district's traditional low-rise nature, any building must be no higher than the historic structures. It should also emulate the Najdi style. For the same reason, most of the essential infrastructure, utilities and roads are hidden below ground.

Major project scopes

A significant step was made in early July when Diriyah Company awarded an estimated $2bn contract to a joint venture of El-Seif Engineering & Contracting and China State to build the North Cultural District. The deal, the largest let on the gigaproject to date, covers multiple assets, including hotels, the King Salman Foundation Library, King Salman University and the House of Saud Museum.

The work was originally planned as multiple construction packages until Diriyah Company took the commercial decision last year to bundle them into one contract. The decision to adopt super packages was driven by a dynamic market in which contractors have been almost overwhelmed with the volume of tenders from various gigaprojects and where cost inflation is taking hold.

“You will not get the attention of the big contractors if you offer small contracts,” Saad explains. By consolidating projects, contractors can focus their resources more effectively and efficiently and provide more competitive pricing.

“We have a hotel, we have an office building, we have a museum, and when we tendered them as one super package, there was a very solid response and interest from the big players because they could focus their resources and pricing and more efficiently engage their supply chains and subcontractors.”

The approach appears to be working. In late July, another estimated $2bn super package was awarded to a joint venture of local contractor Albawani and Qatar’s Urbacon to construct assets in the Wadi Safar district of the gigaproject. Featuring a mix of residential, residential farm plots, hotels, branded hotel villas, a golf course, an equestrian and polo club, and other leisure and entertainment facilities, including Aman, Chedi, Faena and Six Senses-branded hotels, Wadi Safar is positioned as the most upscale and exclusive development in Riyadh and indeed the kingdom as a whole.

The consolidated contract packages strategy reflects the supercharged nature of the Saudi projects market. With various clients, including the gigaprojects, all competing for a limited amount of contracting, material and labour resources, more innovative procurement strategies need to be adopted.

This is particularly critical for Diriyah and its enormous material requirements. For example, it has previously said that it will ultimately need some 350,000 doors, 1.5 million square metres of tiles, 1.2 million tonnes of rebar and 140,000 HVAC units.

Supply-side obstacles

Despite the progress, the project faces challenges related to contracting, engineering and material supply. The high demand for key materials, coupled with global supply chain disruptions, poses a significant conundrum. However, the delivery team has proactively secured and signed framework agreements with manufacturers to ensure a steady flow of required materials.

Transparent demand signalling is a core component of this. “We’ve analysed our material needs up to 2030 and prepared comprehensive requests for proposals for all key items,” says Saad. “We went out to the manufacturers and the supply chain in general to let them see the pipeline is tangible and secure. We are listening to vendors in order to speed things up and to lock down prices.”

Saad lists specific materials not naturally available in Saudi Arabia, such as finishing stones, as items that may be in short supply, in addition to some specialised MEP equipment that is only manufactured abroad. Overall, he is optimistic about the market’s ability to adapt. “The market will adjust itself,” he states. “Of course, there are challenges, but there are also opportunities for manufacturers to up their game.”

Likewise, contractors are being brought into discussions at earlier stages of contract planning. Diriyah is adopting strategies such as early contractor involvement in the design process to help better understand and manage construction risk. “We’re engaging with contractors and delivery partners as early as the concept design stages to get their feedback on the project’s constructability,” says Saad. “Later, these contractors can be invited to bid for the contract, which makes it easier for them and so they can be aware of any issues.”

Financial constraints

Another increasingly evident challenge is financing. As the gigaprojects programme steps up a gear, there have been growing strains on funding the huge costs associated with it, expenditure which in some cases is considerably higher than when first estimated during the initial master planning stages due to cost inflation and disruptions in the supply chain.

As with the other gigaprojects, Diriyah’s initial work has been fully funded by its PIF parent, but later phases will likely require other financing mechanisms. While some of this will come from the $100m in revenues it expects to make over the next year, the client company has been actively tapping into the capital markets, following in the footsteps of other gigaprojects such as Neom and Red Sea Global, which have concluded sizeable borrowing deals in the past two years.

This includes all options up to and including an initial public offering (IPO). The market consensus is that eventually all the PIF project company subsidiaries will go public when the time is right, and Diriyah is unlikely to be an exception.

For the same reason, the client is also exploring public-private partnerships (PPPs) to enable the private sector to take on some of the financial burden. For instance, City Cool Cooling Company recently won a $186m 25-year build-own-operate (BOO) concession to develop a 72,000-refrigeration-tonne district cooling plant. Future opportunities may include expansion of cooling capacity, other utilities and car parking operations.

“PPPs are a key component of our strategy,” says Saad. They provide a platform for private investors to participate in Diriyah's growth while leveraging the expertise and resources of the public sector. We realise we cannot build 10 million square metres alone. We need the private sector to participate and partner with us and give them an opportunity to be part of this journey.”

Another funding source will be off-plan property sales once its real estate offering comes to market. Based on the development plans, this is expected to be significant. With a mix of some 30,000 villas, apartments and townhouses, the ambition is to attract both local and expatriate residents, if or when the kingdom opens its property market to non-nationals.

Investment pathway

Eventually, third parties will also need to invest in the various real estate elements of the gigaproject. Diriyah Company, as a master developer, is actively seeking to attract other developers, family offices and financial institutions to develop land parcels for mixed-use, residential, hospitality, commercial, education and healthcare assets.

“We are already opening up to investors and meeting developers who are interested in partnering with us or buying land,” notes Saad. “It’s a good problem to have – there’s more interest than we can handle right now, which speaks volumes about the project's attractiveness.”

This is just as well. One criticism of the gigaprojects programme has been the shortfall in both local and international investment to date. A lack of understanding of what the gigaprojects are and will be, demand uncertainty, timeframe ambiguities and general market hesitancy have been identified as the stumbling blocks.

Diriyah is determined to change this situation. It is focusing on increasing public and investor awareness of the potential opportunity through initiatives such as its two-day Bashayer event last November, which showcased the masterplan and construction progress to selected key stakeholders. There has also been a push for greater transparency and publishing more specific details about the overall development to make it stand out from the crowded market.

The giant gigaproject is not being developed in isolation. Experience from successful developments worldwide highlights that connectivity and coordination with other government stakeholders are key. Diriyah is planned to be connected to an extension of Riyadh Metro’s Line 2 and a planned Line 7 linking it with King Khalid International airport and another gigaproject, Qiddiya. In total, four metro stations are planned for the development.

At the same time, talks are under way for Diriyah to be one of the main stations on the planned Q-Express high-speed rail link between the airport and Qiddiya, which will complement the metro network. For those arriving by car, there will be the opportunity to use the three-level, 1 million square-metre underground ‘super basement’ car park, which, with a capacity for 10,500 vehicles, will be the fifth-largest parking facility in the world, and by far the biggest in the region.

As Diriyah’s construction accelerates, it is already starting to define its identity more clearly. Building on the kingdom’s historical roots, it is set to create a new legacy for future generations.