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What Is the Mukaab—and Is It Still Being Built?

The Mukaab is planned as the centrepiece of Riyadh’s New Murabba, but Reuters reported in January 2026 that construction beyond excavation and pilings was suspended.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 3 min read
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The Mukaab is a planned 400-metre cube at the centre of New Murabba, a mixed-use development in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But “is being built” is no longer a safe description: Reuters reported on January 27, 2026, that construction beyond excavation and pilings had been suspended while financing and feasibility were reassessed. The report was based on people familiar with the matter, and the project’s reviewed official pages do not confirm that the pause has ended.

What is the Mukaab?

The Mukaab is the proposed landmark at the heart of New Murabba, a planned downtown district in Riyadh. Riyadh Municipality and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund describe it as a cube measuring 400 metres on each side. Those are design dimensions, not measurements of a completed structure. Riyadh Municipality’s Mukaab page and the PIF project profile outline the concept.

The cube is one component of the larger New Murabba development, not a stand-alone project in an empty desert. In its 2023 launch announcement, PIF described plans for 2 million square metres of floor space across hospitality, retail, cultural, residential, commercial and recreational uses. These are announced plans, not proof that the district or all of its proposed buildings will be delivered as described. PIF’s 2023 announcement gives the original scope.

Is the Mukaab still being built?

The latest Mukaab-specific status in the cited material is a pause report, not a confirmed restart. Reuters, in a report republished by Arab News on January 27, 2026, said planned construction beyond soil excavation and pilings had been suspended as financing and feasibility were reassessed. Reuters attributed the information to people familiar with the matter; officials from PIF, the Saudi government and New Murabba did not respond to its requests for comment. The report therefore documents what sources told Reuters, rather than an official project announcement. Read the Reuters report republished by Arab News.

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A later New Murabba announcement dated August 25, 2026, concerns a hospital partnership for the wider downtown. It does not say whether work on the Mukaab resumed, so it cannot establish the cube’s construction status. New Murabba’s official site carries that announcement.

What construction progress had been announced?

New Murabba said on October 15, 2024, that excavation was 86% complete and that more than 10 million cubic metres of earth had been moved. These figures describe site excavation at that date; they do not mean the Mukaab’s structure was 86% complete or that the cube had risen above ground. The company’s milestone announcement reports the figures.

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The distinction matters on a project of this scale: early earthworks and piling prepare a site and foundations, while construction of the building itself is a separate stage. The 2024 milestone is evidence of substantial site preparation, but it does not override Reuters’ later report that work beyond excavation and pilings was on hold in January 2026.

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Will it be the world’s largest structure?

The 400-metre-per-side design makes the Mukaab an unusually large proposed building, but the sources cited here do not establish an independently verified global “largest” ranking. That superlative depends on what is being measured—height, volume, floor area or footprint—and the project announcements do not provide a comparable ranking across those measures. It is more accurate to describe the Mukaab as a planned 400-metre cube than to state that it will definitively become the world’s largest structure.

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What remains uncertain?

  • Whether construction has restarted: the cited official project material does not confirm an end to the reported pause.
  • Whether the original scope will be delivered as announced: the intended district uses and floor area come from PIF’s 2023 plan, not a completion record.
  • Whether the “largest” claim can be verified: no comparable global ranking metric is established by the cited sources.

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