When Opened, This Will Be the Largest Hotel in the World

Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is joining the race for the world’s largest hotel with new construction expected to complete in 2017.

A striking landmark building is on its way to completion in central Mecca’s Manafia area, 2.2 kilometers away from the holy mosque. It will be part of Abraj Kudai, a mixed-use development costing $3.5 billion to create. The project is designed to look like a desert fortress and features towers in a ring atop a central podium.

The hotel is expected to have 12 separate towers, each 44 stories high, with 10,000 rooms total. Seventy restaurants will be on-site as well as a full-size convention center, bus station, mall, several parking garages, a food court and helipads on each tower’s rooftop.

The architects, Dar Al-Handasah, noted that two of the towers will provide five-star accommodations, and the remainder will have four-star services. London-based Areen Hospitality will be designing the interiors, The Telegraph reported, and they will match the opulence found throughout the region.

“Due to its unparalleled size, height as well as distinguished location, exposure and architectural style, the building appears as a striking landmark with a profoundly modern multifunctional identity relating to both the Saudi locality and the Islamic universality of its expected users,” the architects wrote on their website.

The hotel is due to be completed in 2017 and will cover 4.1 million square meters of developed space and have a footprint of 60,000 meters squared.

Guests are expected to be largely visiting to see the holy mosque, and the architects kept that in mind during the design phase.

“Lower levels close to the Holy Haram area are used as commercial venues, thus ensuring immediate and easy access for the Haram visitors,” the architect said on its website.

[Photo: Dargroup]