Construction work recently began on what will be “one of the largest shopping centres in the world“, according to statements to Arab News by Alain Bejjani, director of the Majid Al-Futtaim shopping and hotel conglomerate, the company behind the project. After the groundbreaking ceremony for the new shopping centre, Mall of Saudi, Bejjani stated that the mall will offer the customer “a cutting-edge experience and (…) will be a major attraction for shopping, leisure and entertainment, but also a major tourist attraction on a local and international scale”. To this end, the project has a budget of almost 3.8 billion euros ($4.3 billion) and a surface area of 214,000 m2.
In addition to the large shopping mall, the project includes ancillary buildings for other uses, including six hotels and some 1,600 residential units. In addition, Mall of Saudi will have the world’s fourth largest indoor ski slope, and the largest outside China. Majid Al-Futtaim already operates huge ski facilities in Dubai and Egypt, and is currently building another at a new shopping mall in Oman.
Ski Dubai, which is part of the Mall of Emirates shopping centre, is also one of the largest indoor ski resorts in the world, with 22,500 m2 of skiable area and five runs of varying difficulty up to 400 metres in length. Ski Egypt, on the other hand, is the largest snow park in Africa, with 22,000 m2 and 7,000 tonnes of snow, and includes the first and only penguin habitat in Egypt. Now, Mall of Saudi promises the construction of an artificial ski slope of some 40,000 m2, a gigantic facility that will serve both the entertainment of Mall of Saudi visitors and the training of the newly created Saudi Arabian Olympic ski team.
Here is a video presentation of the Mall of Saudi shopping centre:
Sources: Mall of Saudi, Eurasia Review, Lugares de nieve, Ski Egypt, Ski Dubai, Wikipedia. Images: Mall of Saudi.
