The brave dream brazen dreams, and visionaries bring them to life. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a pioneer, shaping his outlandish ideas and convincing the world to believe in them, too. It’s no small task to bring the $1.5 trillion Neom City to life, and even more challenging to breathe reality into the multibillion-dollar pair of glass-clad skyscrapers taller than the Empire State Building, stretching for 170 km. Critics call it a pipe dream, but it doesn’t stop the prince, who keeps adding more to the landscape. Originally starting with The Line—a region planned to house 9 million residents in a futuristic setting, a seahorse-shaped island called Sindalah, the ski resort Trojena, and the industrial port Oxagon—Neom now boasts over ten smaller projects along the Red Sea.
Centered around sustainability and innovative living, WSJ has stated that more than $237 billion of construction contracts have already been awarded at Neom. The publication also highlighted details from internal documents from 2021, stating that The Line would offer more than seven billion square feet of floor space—29% larger than all of the buildings in New York City combined. It would be divided among apartments, offices, schools, police stations, museums, and a royal palace.
The last three words of the sentence left us stupefied: a royal palace in Neom City, The Line, to be precise, befitting the status of a Saudi Crown Prince, is something that has not been widely discussed nor extensively debated. It is news as significant as the making of a pricey pair of skyscrapers. Per WSJ, the true price of The Line would exceed $2 trillion if fully built. Keeping in mind the hedonistic ways of any prince, Saudi or not, this abode of affluence will be a global icon. If MBS can plan and produce a trillion dollars for a futuristic city for others to admire, and occupy; one can only imagine what his own modern utopia in The Line would look like—and cost.
The ambitious 28 year old, who envisioned Neom to have a sense of “zero gravity” with features appearing to defy physics and include a fake moon, flying robots, etc., would spare no effort to make his modern manor a monument of sorts. Let’s take a page out of the incredible homes belonging to the Saudi royal family. The sprawling Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh is the official residence of the current Saudi monarch King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his family. Then there is Al-Awja Palace on the outskirts of Riyadh, a more secure residence steeped in tradition and the restrained Najdi style.
The same cannot be said of the Erga Palace, a lavish residence used to receive guests and entertain dignitaries. The most sumptuous property in MBS’s real estate portfolio is undoubtedly the Château Louis XIV, bought a decade ago for $300 million.
Situated just outside Paris, this 7,000-square-meter grand home features a nightclub, a gold-leafed fountain, a cinema, an underwater glass chamber in a giant aquarium, a wine cellar, and many other luxuries that make it seem less like a home and more like the abode of an affluent royal.
If the ambitious de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia can enjoy all this and more on foreign soil, it is easy to picture the masterpiece he will erect on home ground. Prince MBS is a man with a $450 million painting that was stored inside his $400 million megayacht Serene, and boasts a property portfolio well over a billion dollars, considering the above. If MBS does make a palace in Neom City, then it will be one giving tough competition to other developments and could shape up to be a showcase of Saudi wealth!
