Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi ArabiaSkyscrapers are making major news in the Middle East. Apartments are 50% reduced in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, nearly a year after the world’s tallest building opened to a meteoric spectacle of fireworks and celebrations.

TIME magazine reports that the cost of renting a studio with floor-to-ceiling windows, marble fixtures and wooden floors has dropped to $1,815 a month from $3,025, while a one-bedroom apartment is available for $2,722 (it used to be $4,536). About 825 of the building’s 900 apartments remain unoccupied, according to Better Homes, a real estate broker in Dubai.

Through September, 27,000 residential units have been put on the market, and another 9,000 are expected to be completed by the end of the year, according to real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. For 2011, the firm forecasts that about 30,000 new units will come on line. via TIME

Concerned officials in Dubai have scrapped half of the future building projects on tap.

Owners of the condominiums say not to worry. The Burg prices will rebound because it is an icon, the tallest building in the world.

Not so fast, say the Saudis, who have their own plans to house the world’s talest building.

The official word is that Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal has not backed away from plans to building a tower in the port city of Jeddah that would dwarf the Burg, being twice as high, and soaring 1.6 kilometers into the aky.

Adrian Smith, who designed the Burj when he was at Skidmore, Owings & Merill, was tapped to design the new Saudi tower, as a partner in his own firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture.

According to official information issued by the company, a city to be constructed around the tower will sprawl over an area of 23 million square metres at a total investment of SR100 billion ($26.6 billion). The city will have the capacity to accommodate 80,000 people in addition to shopping and entertainment facilities. It will have hospitality facilities catering for up to a million visitors. via Gulf News

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