IT’S all hands on deck as Al Muhaidib Contracting Company works against the clock to complete the prestigious King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah a year ahead of schedule, in line with a royal decree to complete it this November.

The leading Saudi contracting firm, with its joint venture partner Six Construct (an affiliate of Besix of Belgium), is building the flagship development just north of King Abdulaziz International Airport. Once complete, the King Abdullah Sports City will not only address the need for a sports facility for Saudi youth but also host national, regional or international sports events in the city.

The project for Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Youth entails the construction of a 60,000-capacity sports stadium with VIP and royal viewing boxes, an indoor sports hall for 10,000 spectators, 25,000 car-parking slots, six training pitches, a track and field arena and a mosque.

Saudi Aramco is the supervision and management consultant of the project, which was designed by global award-winning design house Ove Arup of the UK.

The King Abdullah Sports City ... bird’s eye view.

The contract for the project was awarded in September 2011 and was originally scheduled to be completed at the end of 2014, however, the royal edict has meant that completion of the stadium has to be expedited to November 2013.

The project is running against a very challenging timeline especially after the revision in the stadium’s completion schedule, Alhadi Almusawi, executive director for strategic planning at Al Muhaidib Contracting Company tells Gulf Construction.

“This has prompted us to invest in additional resources to enable us to open additional construction fronts to achieve this objective. Work is also carried out round the clock seven days a week in three daily shifts, which are meticulously managed to ensure that there is no delay or slippage in schedule, regardless of how small it might be,” says Almusawi.

According to Ove Arup, the project has been designed to create inspirational, world-class sporting facilities for Saudi Arabia, and a launch pad for a paradigm shift in participatory sport among Saudi citizens.

“The design is intended to imbue this international venue with a strong sense of its specific place and environment; a contemporary architecture that sustains the people and cultures around it,” says a spokesman for the design practice.

It adds that at the centre of the masterplan will be kingdom’s first purpose-built Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association)-standard football venue. The 60,000-seat national stadium will be home to Jeddah’s two premier league clubs, Al Ittihad FC and Al Ahli SC.

The structure and architecture of the stadium are completely integrated. Running round the stadium is a ribbon of bracing and tie-down V-frames which express the structure and echo the mashrabiya screens of traditional Arabic and Islamic architecture and design.

The sports stadium will have a capacity for 60,000 spectators.

The diamond-patterned screen mediates the breeze and provides shade, enabling the bowl to be naturally ventilated and yet be comfortable in the hot and humid Jeddah environment.

The integrated multi-disciplinary design team has carefully choreographed the total spectator experience – from buying a ticket to taking a seat. Exemplary sightlines and as-close-as-possible proximity to the pitch in the parametrically sculpted bowl has created an elegant, curvaceous form, which has shaped the architecture of this ‘jewel in the desert’.

The main level three concourse is a unique and dramatic triple-height space, with 360-degree views into the bowl.

Within the project are support functions to serve the major Fifa sporting venue including a five-star quality premium lounge, boxes and VVIP facilities, amenities for visiting international athletes, and facilities to serve the local and world media.

The stadium, to be built to Fifa standards, will have a fixed grass pitch and a cantilever roof structure. In common with modern soccer stadiums, it will feature facilities such as a royal box, corporate boxes, premium lounge and media seats, and three tiers of spectator seating.

The project will also have a multipurpose sports hall and athletics stadium built to international standards, suitable for hosting five- or seven-a-side football, badminton, basketball, handball, volleyball and table tennis matches with seating for 2,000 spectators.

The design includes six outdoor tennis courts, two full-size outdoor soccer pitches – one real grass and the artificial grass – and three five/seven-a-side football pitches.

Also within the scope of works are roads on site including a ceremonial and VIP access road, car parks for all the venues, close circuit television (CCTV), public address voice alarm (Pava) and lighting to various aspects of the site, and site security and IT for the entire development.

The mosque complex, set in a landscaped area, will consist of a main prayer hall for a maximum of 500 worshippers, an outdoor prayer area and a minaret. The complex will feature a central plaza with the royal ceremonial and VVIP access road to the soccer stadium.

ABOUT AL MUHAIDIB

Al Muhaidib Contracting Company, a fully Saudi-owned company and a subsidiary of Abdul Kadir Al Muhaidib and Sons Group, has been engaged in the construction of residential, commercial and office buildings, hospitals, schools, water and wastewater management systems, wastewater treatment plants, water purification and desalination plants.

Set up in 1977, the company has established itself as a leading turnkey construction firm owing its steady growth to its attention to quality and timeliness. It has two main business units, one covering general construction and the other infrastructure. It has also broadened its horizon by inking partnerships with international leaders in the construction industry to maximise the value proposition that creates the company’s competitive advantage.

The company has formed a number of successful joint ventures with leading international companies like Six Construct on the King Abdullah Sports City project, Vinci UK (formerly Taylor Woodrow International Limited ) for the Jeddah strategic water reservoirs project, and STFA, one of the leading contracting firms in Turkey.

“Al Muhaidib Contracting Company is a full-service heavy contractor, with experience, skill, and resources to tackle the most challenging construction projects under the most demanding schedule, offering on-budget performance, engineering know-how, innovation, and dedication to safety,” Almusawi says.

“The company maintains highly professional standards in procurement and construction, with due consideration to quality control, loss prevention and scheduling requirements. It meets the construction challenges by adapting services to meet the needs of individual projects, and progressively delivers more complex projects.”

Some of its key local clients include Saudi Aramco, National Water Company, Ministry of Higher Education, King Abdulaziz University, Ministry of Interior, and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu.

“Al Muhaidib prides itself in not being just another large construction company but in being different in offering the best value possible for any project,” says Almusawi.

As a Class-A-certified contractor for Saudi Aramco and the Saudi government for public works, the company has built a reputation for delivering on complex jobs that call for detailed thought and planning in relation to schedules, logistics or complicated systems.

It has delivered hundreds of diverse projects over three decades in Saudi Arabia and the neighbouring countries, ranging from educational complexes to hospitals and town developments including sewerage and water projects, school facilities, bank premises, housing projects, shopping malls, warehouses, office buildings, and many others.

“Our completed projects continue to stand as testimony to our unequalled experience, an unfailing commitment to excellence, and our leading role in shaping our country’s infrastructure and economic development,” says Almusawi.

Besides the sports city, the company’s diverse project portfolio includes Qurrayah sea water plant, where eight new substations were constructed within a scope of works that included the concrete structure and precast hollow-core roof slabs, with membrane water-proofing, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) works.

Al Muhaidib has carried out the building and installation of C-130 flight simulators for the Saudi Royal Air Force, and a testing facility for Rolls Royce Arabia, to test aircraft jet engines in Dhahran for Saudi Arabian Airlines.

It has also successfully undertaken a number of major energy projects, several of which have involved working in tandem with the sister company ACWA Power.

Al Muhaidib has an impressive track record of having successfully completed numerous major support projects for Saudi Aramco primarily in onshore pipeline construction. It has, in fact, expanded operation in this area into providing complete service solutions to the downstream capacity in pipeline supply and construction.

These successes, Almusawi says, come from the company’s diverse skills database of more than 8,000 employees, who continually work on improving management techniques, optimising financial systems to deliver the most appropriate, project-specific solutions.