Jeddah Tower Nears Major Construction Milestone With Engineer Saying Work Is Moving Faster Than Ever

Construction on Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Tower, the structure that will surpass every building on earth upon completion, is closing in on a major internal milestone, with its project engineer confirming the pace of work has accelerated sharply.

Engineer John Peronto, managing principal at Thornton Tomasetti and project manager for the tower, told Newsweek the team is pushing very aggressively toward completing the upper observation level around the 160th floor, known as the sky terrace. He described it as roughly 60 weeks out.

The tower has already passed the 104th floor at just over 400 metres (1,312 feet). Peronto said construction is advancing at approximately 4 metres per week, putting the 500-metre mark around 25 weeks away.

Once complete, the Jeddah Tower is expected to exceed 1,000 metres (3,281 feet), surpassing Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which at 828 metres (2,717 feet) has held the record as the world's tallest building since 2010.

The building is designed by architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, co-founders of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG). Smith also designed the Burj Khalifa during his earlier time at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Peronto said construction is now moving much faster than it ever did, with the team averaging roughly one floor per week on the central core. Short delays from holidays and wind conditions have not significantly disrupted overall momentum.

Jeddah Tower construction progress June 2026 /Newsweek

One of the most technically demanding aspects of the project is concrete pumping. Peronto described it as groundbreaking, noting the tower will require pumping concrete to a height of one kilometre, something never previously achieved at this scale on any building.

Advances in pump technology now allow the team to deliver concrete to the full height of the structure using a single system, rather than the staged multi-pump approach originally anticipated. This has simplified logistics considerably.

The tower is the centrepiece of Jeddah Economic City, a 5.3 million square metre (57 million sq ft) urban development, and sits within Saudi Arabia's broader Vision 2030 push to diversify the national economy away from oil.

Completion is projected for August 2028. The tower is expected to rise to at least 167 stories, with Peronto confirming occupied floors will be definitely more than 130 and in the 160s floor level near the summit.

The progress at Jeddah Tower stands in contrast to other Saudi megaprojects. Funding for The Line within NEOM has reportedly been suspended until at least 2030, while the Mukaab cube skyscraper faces a pause pending review of Public Investment Fund (PIF) backed initiatives.