Middle East Business
A Grade A dry warehouse is taking shape at King Abdulaziz Port
By Staff Writer | 2 September 2026
An 18,500 square metre plot in Dammam carries a warehouse of more than 12,000 square metres, 18.8 metres to its highest point, with seven dock levelled gates and completion set for 2027.
Refad Real Estate Investment and Development Company has announced the development of a Grade A dry logistics warehouse at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam. The plot runs to about 18,500 square metres. The warehouse itself is more than 12,000 square metres, with a further 670 square metres given over to administrative accommodation. Completion is expected in 2027.
The specification, and what it commits
The building reaches 18.8 metres at its highest point. It has seven loading and unloading gates fitted with dock levellers, reinforced industrial flooring, circular truck lanes, administrative and service accommodation and security infrastructure. The design allows for later adaptation to ambient temperature storage, and the electrical infrastructure and associated technical systems are designed to be upgradeable to suit.
Those numbers are not decoration. A clear height near 18 metres sets the racking configuration, which sets the floor loading, which sets the slab design and the flatness tolerance the operator will later measure against. Seven gates with levellers fixes the throughput the yard geometry has to serve, and circular truck lanes are the layout answer to that. A developer that publishes those figures before completion has, in effect, published the performance criteria a future tenant will hold it to.
A floor flatness specification and a clear height are the two lines in a logistics warehouse specification that generate the most post completion argument, because both are measurable to the millimetre and both are only tested once the racking goes in.
We aim to develop premium properties in strategic locations that serve the economy and key industries, delivering sustainable value for our partners and operators.
Abdulhadi AlQahtani, managing director of Refad Real Estate Investment and Development Company
Where it sits in the national programme
The scheme is presented as part of the wider expansion of the Kingdom's industrial and logistics estate, under a master plan aiming at 59 logistics centres covering more than 100 million square metres by 2030. Refad's stated model runs past construction into managing and maintaining the facility and its common areas, which places the same party behind the specification and behind the long term condition of the asset.
The company describes the project as an addition to its logistics portfolio and part of a strategy of developing modern facilities in locations tied to transport networks, ports and industrial zones.
What has not been published
No contract sum has been given, no contractor or consultant has been named, and no start on site date has been published. Nothing has been said about whether the building is pre-let or speculative, which is the question that decides whether the tenant's requirements are already in the design or will arrive as variations. The 2027 completion is stated as expected rather than contracted. None of that is assumed here.
For a quantity surveyor or a contracts manager working the Eastern Province, this is a scheme whose published specification is already tighter than most announcements of its kind. That is useful when it comes to bidding, and it is exactly as useful to the party on the other side of the table when the floor is surveyed.