Saudi Arabia’s New Murabba is pushing ahead with a phased rollout of Riyadh’s planned new downtown, even as its centrepiece, the 400-metre cube-shaped Mukaab, remains under review following a construction suspension earlier this year.
The Public Investment Fund (PIF) company has stepped up its marketing push in recent weeks, with a fresh brand campaign positioning the 14mn square metre district as the Saudi capital’s future centre, where every home sits within a 15-minute walk of shops, parks, schools, healthcare and other amenities.
The promotional drive follows a turbulent start to the year. Saudi Arabia suspended planned construction of the Mukaab in January while it reassesses the project’s financing and feasibility, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Reuters. The structure was conceived as a 400-metre by 400-metre metal cube containing a dome with an AI-powered display that visitors could view from a terraced structure more than 300 metres tall inside it.
The wider district is moving forward regardless. Speaking at MIPIM in Cannes in March, chief executive Michael Dyke said 20 development packages are scheduled for release during 2026, with the first two already fully committed, out of a potential total of around 100 separate investment packages. Construction is starting in the north of the site, where two initial communities dubbed Core Downtown North are being prepared to house around 23,000 people over the next five to seven years.
The Mukaab is now scheduled for completion by 2038, according to updates given at the Cannes event, while the completion target for the district as a whole has slipped from 2030 to 2040.
The scale remains vast. Dyke told delegates that the downtowns of Manhattan, Paris and London combined would be slightly smaller than New Murabba. At full build-out the project is planned to deliver 104,000 residential units, 9,000 hotel rooms and 980,000 square metres of retail space, with phased delivery aligned to Expo 2030 and the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
More than 70% of the master plan is residential, organised into nine districts and 14 communities linked by public spaces and anchor attractions.
Why it matters for the trade
The headline number for the trade is 9,000 hotel rooms, and the timeline for them just moved. With the district’s completion pushed to 2040 and the Mukaab, the project’s anchor attraction, parked pending a financing review, operators should treat New Murabba as a late-decade story rather than a near-term one.
The properties that matter for programmes in the next few years will come from elsewhere in Riyadh’s pipeline. That said, the phased northern rollout and the hard deadlines of Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup mean some hospitality and entertainment stock will land sooner, and the packages being released this year will show which hotel brands are committing. The suspension of the Mukaab is also a useful reality check on giga-project marketing: itinerary planning and brochure copy should be built on what is contracted and under construction, not on renders.
Riyadh’s fundamentals for the trade remain strong regardless, driven by the regional headquarters programme, a growing events calendar and rising airlift, but New Murabba’s contribution to sellable product is now a 2030s proposition.