The tower, named “Tour Mohammed VI” (the name of the current king of Morocco) and whose work began on Thursday evening, will reach 250 meters high. If this work is completed, the skyscraper will be the tallest on the entire African continent, according to the official MAP agency.
The place chosen to erect this building is none other than the right bank of the Bouregreg river in Salé (not far from the capital Rabat). It will have 55 floors and will benefit the BMCE Bank, the company of the wealthy Moroccan Othman Benjelloun.
During an official ceremony and in the presence of the king, the billionaire suggested that the ambitious construction project had been announced two years ago, an announcement followed by a series of preliminary studies.
Three prime contractors were chosen for the occasion: the Belgian manufacturer Besix, the Chinese company CRCCI and the Moroccan company TGCC. The cost of the work is estimated at 367 million euros. Please note that this budget is provisional, which means that it could change during the work.
The official date for the end of the work remains an enigma for the moment. However, during the month of last October, Besix and TGCC risked advancing the period of May 2022 as the delivery date of the skyscraper. A hotel, offices, residences, and even an observatory on the top four floors of the building are planned inside “the tallest tower in Africa”.
The Sherifian kingdom does not intend to limit itself to the “Mohammed VI Tower”. He also has in his sights “Rabat, city of light”, a titanic project of several constructions on both banks of the Bouregreg. Among these, the “Grand Theatre”, the work of the Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. In this same vein, the “House of Arts and Culture” is also planned.
For the moment, the two tallest towers in Morocco are the Maroc Telecom tower located in Rabat, which rises to 139 meters (including antenna) and the Twin Center twin towers based in Casablanca, which each reach 115 meters in height.
source: fr.africanews.com
