RIYADH — The King Salman Park Foundation secured more than $3.8 billion in new private-sector investment commitments at the MIPIM 2026 real estate conference in Cannes, France, in the most significant foreign capital injection into a Saudi giga-project since the Iran war began disrupting Gulf economies on February 28. The two packages, announced on March 10 to an audience of 20,000 delegates from 90 countries, bring total committed investment in the 16.9-square-kilometre urban regeneration project to over 20 billion Saudi riyals across five major development phases.
The announcement arrived as Iranian drones struck residential areas in Riyadh Province and Saudi airlines extended flight cancellations across the region. That international investors chose this precise moment to commit billions to a park in the Saudi capital suggests a remarkable degree of confidence in the Kingdom’s long-term trajectory — and in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic transformation programme, which has continued to attract capital even as the region’s security architecture unravels.
Table of Contents
- What Did King Salman Park Announce at MIPIM 2026?
- The $3 Billion Package 5 Consortium
- Package 4 and the Retal Urban Development Award
- What Is King Salman Park and Why Does It Matter?
- Why Are Investors Betting Billions on Riyadh During a War?
- Riyadh’s $1 Trillion Transformation
- How Does King Salman Park Fit Into Vision 2030?
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Did King Salman Park Announce at MIPIM 2026?
The King Salman Park Foundation unveiled two major development packages at the MIPIM 2026 international property conference, which runs from March 9 to 13 at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. Together, the packages represent more than $3.8 billion in private-sector commitments — the largest single announcement at this year’s conference and among the largest in MIPIM’s 36-year history.
Package 5, the headline deal, involves a $3 billion fund to develop a residential-led mixed-use district adjacent to the King Salman Park metro station on the Green Line of the Riyadh Metro. A consortium led by Kolaghassi Development Company, working alongside Al Othaim Investment and New York-based RXR — a globally active real estate investor and operator — will deliver the district. A CMA-regulated fund managed by Mulkia Investment Company provides the financial structure.
Package 4, confirmed alongside Package 5, was awarded to a consortium led by Retal Urban Development Co. with support from a fund managed by SAB Invest. Valued at more than $850 million, the district will host over 600 residential units, more than 140 hotel keys, and almost 50,000 square metres of Grade A office space, alongside curated retail and food and beverage experiences.
| Package | Lead Developer | Fund Manager | Value | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Package 5 | Kolaghassi Development + Al Othaim + RXR | Mulkia Investment | $3 billion+ | 1 million+ sq m mixed-use, metro-adjacent |
| Package 4 | Retal Urban Development | SAB Invest | $850 million+ | 600+ residences, 140 hotel keys, 50,000 sq m office |
| Total new commitments (MIPIM 2026) | $3.85 billion+ | |||
| Total committed investment (all packages) | SAR 20 billion+ | Five packages across full site | ||
The $3 Billion Package 5 Consortium
Package 5 stands as the single largest private-sector commitment to King Salman Park to date. The district, which will occupy a built-up area exceeding one million square metres, sits directly adjacent to the King Salman Park metro station — one of five Green Line stations serving the park — positioning it as a transit-oriented development designed to reduce Riyadh’s dependence on private vehicles.
The consortium’s composition reflects Saudi Arabia’s strategy of pairing domestic firms with international partners. Kolaghassi Development Company, a Saudi-registered developer, leads the project alongside Al Othaim Investment, a diversified Saudi conglomerate with interests in retail and real estate. RXR, based in New York, brings global development expertise and a portfolio spanning 30 million square feet of commercial, residential, and mixed-use assets across the United States.
Mulkia Investment Company, a Capital Market Authority-regulated fund manager based in Riyadh, provides the financial architecture. The CMA-regulated fund structure offers international investors a familiar governance framework — audited accounts, independent boards, regulated custody — that Saudi Arabia has worked to build since opening the Tadawul to direct foreign participation in 2015.
The residential-led district will include apartments, retail, commercial space, and community amenities. Though specific unit counts have not been disclosed, the one-million-square-metre scope suggests a development comparable in scale to London’s Canary Wharf residential expansion or Singapore’s Tengah new town.
Package 4 and the Retal Urban Development Award
Retal Urban Development, a publicly listed Saudi developer headquartered in the Eastern Province, leads Package 4. The company, which reported revenues of 4.3 billion riyals in 2024, has delivered more than 15,000 housing units across Saudi Arabia and specialises in master-planned communities.
The $850 million district focuses on creating a mixed-use neighbourhood that combines residential, hospitality, commercial, and leisure functions. More than 600 residential units will anchor the community, supported by over 140 hotel keys — a figure that signals the Foundation’s expectation of sustained domestic and international visitor demand once the park opens.
Almost 50,000 square metres of Grade A office space positions Package 4 as a destination for the professional services firms and regional headquarters that have been relocating to Riyadh under the Kingdom’s Regional Headquarters Programme, which has already attracted more than 600 multinational companies — surpassing the original 2030 target four years early, according to the Royal Commission for Riyadh City.
SAB Invest, the asset management arm of Saudi Awwal Bank (formerly SABB and the Kingdom’s oldest commercial bank with roots dating to 1926), manages the fund backing the project. The involvement of a Tier 1 Saudi banking institution adds a layer of institutional credibility that the Foundation has deliberately cultivated across its package structure.
What Is King Salman Park and Why Does It Matter?
King Salman Park is a 16.9-square-kilometre urban regeneration project on the site of Riyadh’s decommissioned old airport, making it roughly seven times the size of London’s Hyde Park and five times the area of New York’s Central Park. When completed, it will rank as the world’s largest city park — a distinction that serves as both a liveability investment and a branding exercise for a city competing with Dubai, Singapore, and Sydney for global talent and corporate headquarters.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced the project in March 2019 at the initiative of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, positioning it alongside NEOM, Diriyah Gate, and the New Murabba as Riyadh’s four mega-projects. Unlike the more futuristic ambitions of NEOM or the Mukaab, King Salman Park addresses an immediate quality-of-life deficit: Riyadh, a city of 8 million people, has historically ranked among the world’s least green major capitals.
The park’s masterplan, designed by Omrania in collaboration with SWA Group, features a system of branching valleys inspired by natural wadi riverbeds that create cooler microclimates in the desert heat. Soil regeneration layers and irrigation systems fed by treated wastewater will support the growth of more than one million trees across the site.
Cultural infrastructure anchors the park’s civic ambitions. A 2,300-seat National Theatre, a 106-metre-tall Museum of Civilisations, an art library, a cinema hall, and specialised academies for performing arts, visual arts, and music are all part of the masterplan. Five stations on the Green Line of the Riyadh Metro connect the park to the city centre and the wider metropolitan rail network.
| Metric | Detail |
|---|---|
| Total area | 16.9 sq km |
| Location | Former Riyadh old airport site |
| Announced | March 2019 by King Salman |
| Phase 1 opening | Late 2026 (Art Park section) |
| Trees planned | 1 million+ |
| Metro stations (Green Line) | 5 |
| National Theatre capacity | 2,300 seats |
| Museum of Civilisations height | 106 metres |
| Total committed investment | SAR 20 billion+ ($5.3 billion+) |
| Size comparison | 7x Hyde Park, 5x Central Park |
The first phase is scheduled to open to the public in late 2026, with the Art Park section — a curated landscape of public art installations, performance spaces, and botanical gardens — expected to welcome visitors first.
Why Are Investors Betting Billions on Riyadh During a War?
The timing of the MIPIM announcement has drawn attention precisely because it coincides with the most severe military crisis to hit Saudi Arabia since the 1990-91 Gulf War. Iranian drones have struck residential areas in Riyadh Province, Saudi airlines have suspended regional flights, and the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency government employees to leave the Kingdom on March 8.
Three factors explain why investors nonetheless committed $3.8 billion during the second week of the Iran war.
The first is the distinction between short-term security risk and long-term structural demand. Real estate investors with horizons of 10 to 20 years are pricing the fundamentals of a city that the Royal Commission for Riyadh City projects will house 15 to 20 million people by 2030, according to population growth modelling published alongside the Riyadh Strategy. The war, however catastrophic in the near term, does not alter the underlying demographic pressure, the regulatory reforms, or the sovereign wealth capacity backing the projects.
The second is pricing power. Riyadh’s property market has seen prices rise 10.6 percent year-over-year as of September 2025, according to data from the Royal Commission. With only 16,000 new homes delivered in 2025 against a projected need for 57,000 units in 2026 and 2027, the supply-demand imbalance provides a floor under values that most global cities cannot match. Investors who commit during a period of geopolitical uncertainty secure allocations at terms that may not be available once the conflict subsides.
The third is the institutional framework. Since January 2026, a new legal framework has allowed foreign investors to own property in designated zones across Saudi Arabia — a landmark regulatory change that has opened the market to pension funds, sovereign wealth vehicles, and institutional allocators who were previously restricted to indirect exposure. The CMA-regulated fund structures used in both Package 4 and Package 5 provide the governance standards these investors require.
Riyadh’s $1 Trillion Transformation
King Salman Park forms one pillar of a broader campaign to transform Riyadh into a global top-10 city by GDP, a target Mohammed bin Salman set in 2021. The city’s four mega-projects — King Salman Park, Diriyah Gate, New Murabba (home to the record-setting Mukaab structure), and the Sports Boulevard — together represent investment commitments approaching $50 billion, according to project disclosures and Riyadh municipality data.
Diriyah Gate, the 14-square-kilometre heritage and lifestyle district built around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of At-Turaif, has already begun receiving visitors to its early retail and hospitality phases. New Murabba, centred on the 400-metre Mukaab — a cube-shaped structure designed to house a vertical city including 104,000 residential units, hotels, retail, and leisure — broke ground in 2024. The Sports Boulevard, a 135-kilometre linear park threading through Riyadh’s urban fabric, is designed to encourage active lifestyles in a city where summer temperatures routinely exceed 45 degrees Celsius.
The collective impact of these projects on Riyadh’s construction sector has been substantial. Saudi Arabia’s construction industry generated approximately $72 billion in revenue in 2025, according to data from the General Authority for Statistics, with Riyadh accounting for an estimated 40 percent of national activity. Building permits issued in the capital rose 28 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2025, reflecting the pipeline of mega-projects entering active construction phases.
The Regional Headquarters Programme has proven the most effective demand driver. More than 600 international companies — including Bechtel, Northern Trust, PwC, and Baker Hughes — have established or committed to establishing regional headquarters in Riyadh, creating demand for Grade A office space, executive housing, international schools, and the lifestyle amenities that accompany a mobile professional workforce.
Riyadh’s population, which stood at approximately 7.6 million in the 2022 census, is growing at nearly 4 percent annually — one of the highest rates of any major global city. The Royal Commission’s strategy document projects the metropolitan area will reach 15 million residents by the early 2030s, driven by a combination of natural growth, internal migration from smaller Saudi cities, and international recruitment.
The Riyadh Metro, which began limited operations in late 2024 after years of construction delays, provides the public transport backbone that King Salman Park’s masterplan depends on. The six-line network, built at a cost of approximately $23 billion, connects the park to King Abdullah Financial District, the Diplomatic Quarter, and Riyadh’s main commercial corridors.
A new law permitting foreigners to buy property in designated zones, effective from January 2026, has removed one of the last structural barriers to international capital deployment. Early data suggests that the reform has prompted a measurable increase in inquiry volumes from Gulf-based institutional investors, European family offices, and Asian sovereign wealth funds, according to Knight Frank’s Middle East division.
How Does King Salman Park Fit Into Vision 2030?
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 economic transformation programme assigned Riyadh a central role: the city is to serve as the Kingdom’s gateway to the global economy, its primary destination for foreign direct investment, and the showcase for a post-oil Saudi Arabia. King Salman Park addresses the quality-of-life pillar that Vision 2030’s architects identified as essential to attracting and retaining the international talent the programme requires.
The programme’s latest progress data, published by the Saudi National Transformation Unit in late 2025, showed that 78 percent of Vision 2030’s strategic objectives were either on track or ahead of schedule. Non-oil GDP as a share of total output reached 52 percent in the third quarter of 2025, exceeding the programme’s 2024 milestone. Saudi Arabia’s industrial production index rose 10.4 percent in January 2026, according to the General Authority for Statistics, with manufacturing output driving much of the gain.
The real estate sector has been a direct beneficiary. Saudi Arabia’s residential property market saw transaction volumes rise to 312,000 deals in 2025, a 14 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Justice’s real estate registry. Riyadh led with approximately 35 percent of national transactions. Rental yields in the capital averaged 8.89 percent — among the highest of any major global city and well above the 3 to 5 percent typical in London, New York, or Singapore.
The park’s green infrastructure directly targets one of Riyadh’s most cited weaknesses in global liveability rankings. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2025 Global Liveability Index placed Riyadh below its Gulf peers on environmental and urban amenity measures — a gap that a one-million-tree urban forest is designed to narrow.
The $3.8 billion MIPIM announcement also illustrates a shift in how Saudi giga-projects are being financed. Early Vision 2030 projects relied overwhelmingly on Public Investment Fund capital. King Salman Park’s five-package structure, by contrast, distributes development risk across private consortiums — each backed by CMA-regulated funds — while the Foundation retains masterplan control. The model echoes how London’s Olympic Park was redeveloped after the 2012 Games: public land, public masterplan, private capital, regulated governance.
Whether the Iran war will slow the project’s timeline remains an open question. Construction-sector supply chains that rely on Gulf shipping routes face disruption while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed, and building materials sourced from East Asia must now take longer Red Sea routes. The Foundation has not publicly addressed potential delays.
The first phase opening, scheduled for late 2026, will test whether the park can deliver on its promise to reshape how Riyadh’s residents and the world perceive the Saudi capital — not merely as a seat of government and oil wealth, but as a city worth living in.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much investment did King Salman Park secure at MIPIM 2026?
The King Salman Park Foundation announced more than $3.8 billion in new private-sector commitments at MIPIM 2026 in Cannes, comprising a $3 billion-plus fund for Package 5 led by Kolaghassi Development Company and an $850 million-plus award for Package 4 led by Retal Urban Development. Total committed investment across all five packages now exceeds 20 billion Saudi riyals.
When will King Salman Park open to the public?
The first phase of King Salman Park, beginning with the Art Park section featuring public art installations and botanical gardens, is scheduled to open in late 2026. The full park development spans multiple phases over the coming years, with the privately developed mixed-use districts under Packages 4 and 5 following their own construction timelines.
How large is King Salman Park compared to other city parks?
At 16.9 square kilometres, King Salman Park will be approximately seven times the size of London’s Hyde Park and five times the area of New York’s Central Park, making it the world’s largest city park. The site occupies the former Riyadh old airport grounds and will include over one million trees, cultural venues, and mixed-use development districts.
Who are the main investors and developers involved?
Package 5 is led by a consortium of Kolaghassi Development Company, Al Othaim Investment, and New York-based RXR, with the fund managed by Mulkia Investment Company. Package 4 is led by Retal Urban Development Co. with financial backing from a fund managed by SAB Invest, the asset management arm of Saudi Awwal Bank. Both fund structures are regulated by the Saudi Capital Market Authority.
Will the Iran war affect King Salman Park’s development timeline?
The King Salman Park Foundation has not publicly addressed potential delays related to the ongoing Iran conflict. Construction supply chains face disruption from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and building materials from East Asia must now take longer routes via the Red Sea. The first phase opening remains scheduled for late 2026, though analysts note that regional logistics constraints could push timelines for later phases.
