As Riyadh emerges as a truly global city, real estate is highly sought after. From homes to office space, commercial sites to leisure facilities, demand is outstripping supply as the city’s population surges and economy grows, driven in large part by businesses looking to establish regional and national headquarters in the capital.
With a younger, more outward generation looking to purchase their first homes, there is also an expectation that real estate should offer modern ways of living, working, and relaxing that require new approaches to buildings, communities, and urban environments.
Saudi Vision 2030 was ahead of the curve in identifying this trend, making 70 percent home ownership one of its key goals. As pressure grows to both respond to the demand for real estate and achieve the Vision 2030 goals, ROSHN Group, the PIF-owned giga-project, is rising to meet this challenge by creating opportunities for the Kingdom’s home buyers. The recent launch of the latest sales tranche of ROSHN’s already iconic SEDRA development in the north of Riyadh is an opportunity to examine just how ROSHN is creating these opportunities.
SEDRA has justly established itself as a major talking point of Riyadh’s real estate market. The latest sales tranche for the community puts over 1,200 new units onto the market, with more to come in what will eventually be a 4,800+ unit phase spread over 1.9 million square meters of SEDRA’s 35 million square meter total.
Since the first residents arrived in 2022, two years ahead of schedule and marking ROSHN as the first of the Saudi giga-projects to deliver to customers, it has rapidly become the city’s most sought after community with previous sales launches selling out at speed. The reasons for this show just what ROSHN is bringing to Riyadh’s real estate market – and that of the wider Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“We build more than homes, we are creating a new way of living in the Kingdom,” says Ghada AlRumayan, ROSHN’s Group Chief Marketing Officer (GCMO). “We want to enable residents and visitors to enjoy a higher quality of life than ever before by transforming Saudi’s urban environments into communities that offer more to our residents, such as hosting world-class sports facilities and events. This reflects our Vision 2030 mandate, which includes contributing to the Kingdom’s goal of 70 percent home ownership as well as supporting numerous other goals including quality of life.”
Reaching SEDRA from Riyadh is quick and easy, yet it is akin to stepping into another world. The streets clearly favour walking in their layout, length, and abundant natural shade. So, while residences may have cars parked outside, it’s rare to see them used within the community – a far cry from other cities in the region.
Amenities make community complete with walkability
In terms of amenities, it’s also a truly holistic and accessible offering that puts the development’s walkable streets to good use, allowing residents to go to the shops, to school, to mosque, or out to eat on foot. The latest phase of SEDRA takes this to the next level, drawing on Vision 2030’s emphasis on social and sporting activities, with a planned state-of-the-art sports dome, developed and operated by the Saudi Sports for All Federation (SFA) with whom ROSHN recently signed a commercial partnership.
Like Vision 2030, ROSHN is also creating opportunities for the private sector. According to the Group itself, it is currently looking to form over 100 partnerships with the private sector in the near future. At ROSHN’s own Supply Chain Forum, hosted in January of this year in Riyadh, the Group brought together over 800 local and international supply chain leaders to explore these opportunities.
Eight partnership announcements came from the forum alone, including localization MOUs with major manufacturers Schüco International KG and Lixil/Grohe as well as green-tech innovators Partanna, Pure.Tech, and Connected Innovations. These followed the reveal of a seven billion Saudi Riyal agreement with China Harbour towards the end of 2023 for construction works on future ROSHN developments, alongside multi-million SAR partnerships with Saudi companies Abyat, Saudi Pan Kingdom Company and PC Marine Services.
ROSHN’s integrated approach to its projects also creates opportunities. Shops, services, and other providers across a range of sectors – whether local startups or established brands – can access prestigious new premises with both ready-made and ready-to-grow customer bases. Looking at SEDRA as an example, there are local shops for each neighbourhood as well as the larger district malls where retail, F&B, and entertainment come together to serve this new community and its visitors. Amid all these, there are also desirable commercial spaces ready to act as attractive new Riyadh headquarters for businesses operating in the Kingdom as well as local companies.
SEDRA is a particularly strong example due to its integration with ROSHN Front, an iconic Riyadh destination acquired by ROSHN last year in the Kingdom’s largest single real estate deal. Already, welcoming over 10 million customers per year, ROSHN Front’s 80,000 square meters is now integrated into SEDRA, positioning both as attractive destinations for brands and businesses looking for premises.
ROSHN Front marks a new opportunity for the Group to leverage its development expertise to create mixed-use communities that offer everything to residents. ROSHN Front is one of Riyadh’s most popular mixed-use areas, offering retail, F&B, hospitality and commercial space in a design that is both open air and easy to walk around. Once known for its expertise in home development, ROSHN is now building a reputation as an innovative community developer.
Today, ROSHN’s portfolio includes retail; commercial; hospitality; sports, leisure, and entertainment; knowledge hubs; warehousing and logistics; healthcare; and education alongside its now well-established residential offering.
“What we have created with SEDRA is part of our ongoing growth as an integrated real estate developer all over the Kingdom; SEDRA was initially thought of as a residential community. We wanted to do more for our residents, and we transformed SEDRA into the first-of-its-kind mixed-asset destination and community in our capital city, Riyadh. We are committed to improving the quality of life for the people of Saudi Arabia in line with the Saudi Vision 2030 and SEDRA is an example of this,” said Ghada Alrumayan, ROSHN’s GCMO.
With demand for real estate showing no immediate sign of slowing, ROSHN has great expectations to meet. However, the progress being made on SEDRA, the recent launch of its MARAFY project in Jeddah, and the regular announcement of new partnerships with local and international businesses suggest that the ROSHN team are undaunted and effectively leveraging their giga-project resources. As the latest phase of SEDRA sales sends another jolt of excitement through Riyadh’s real estate market, it stands as a testament to the way in which Vision 2030 is creating opportunities for the Kingdom, businesses, and investors through its champions like ROSHN.
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