With about 370,000 sqm of gross leasable area, the figure on the developer’s project page, The Avenues Riyadh the scheme Shomoul Holding positions as the largest commercial mall in the Middle East by GLA. The site sits at the intersection of King Salman Road and King Fahd Road in Al Qirawan, on the northern growth axis of the capital, with parking for more than 14,000 vehicles. Shomoul, the Saudi subsidiary of Kuwait’s Mabanee, reported the project 89 percent complete on its first-quarter call on 6 May 2026 and guided to an opening in the first half of 2027; the project page states the first quarter.
The tenant evidence arrived before the building did. Alshaya Group, the Kuwait-based franchise operator, committed more than 150 million dollars to over 100 stores across more than 50,000 sqm, bringing H&M, Starbucks, Shake Shack and other brands from its portfolio into a single lease package. The entertainment programme runs to 19 cinema halls, the region’s first DreamPlay interactive centre from DreamWorks, and family formats including Masha and the Bear, Zafari, Cube Karting and Sports Ultimate.
The retail podium carries five towers. Tower 1 is offices with about 41,000 sqm of leasable space; three Hilton-operated hotels, a Waldorf Astoria, a Canopy by Hilton and a Conrad, add more than 1,200 hotel keys in total, with the hotels scheduled to open roughly a year after the mall. The planned hotel keys add an on-site hospitality population to the retail catchment, and the developer markets the project as a tourism destination as well as a shopping centre.
Mabanee built the format in Kuwait, where The Avenues is the country’s largest mall, and is exporting it through Shomoul to Riyadh and, in a second scheme, to Al Khobar. Shomoul values the Riyadh project at more than SAR 16 billion. The timing places The Avenues Riyadh and Westfield Riyadh, which enters operation in the fourth quarter of 2026, in the same 2026 to 2027 expansion-planning window for brands entering or enlarging their Saudi footprint.
