Ski slope, started construction of its mixed-use Khams Shamat Touristic Development project in Syria even as the security situation there worsened. The Dubai-based developer began work on the US $1 billion development, which is located 17 kilometers west of the Syrian capital Damascus, the company said in an e-mailed statement on August 7. The mall builder on July 27 started laying the foundations for the first phase of the project, which will involve building hotels, shops, homes and offices within a 1.5 million square- meter area in the Yaafour district, according to the statement. "All necessary preparations required to proceed with the execution of the project have already been made," Waddah As reported by Bloomberg, Majid Al Futtaim Group, the shopping-mall developer that built Dubai's indoor El Solh, the company's regional head for Syria and Lebanon, said in the statement. That includes the allocation of project management and construction teams, he said. About 2,200 protesters have been killed in Syria since March in an uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the National Organization for Human Rights. More than 500 members of the security forces have also been killed, Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad told India's News X channel.

St. Petersburg's construction and architecture committee permitted the state-controlled Gazprom gas giant to build a skyscraper on the Gulf of Finland, the company's public and business center said on Friday. Gazprom owns a plot of land in the area and plans to build a 470-meter tall office and an entire business center, Lakhta Center, nine kilometers to the north of the city center. In mid July, a lower commission for land and construction recommended that the project be allowed. The official limit for buildings in the area is 27 meters tall but the architecture committee said the limit would be extended to 500 meters for the Gazprom project. The new Lakhta Center project will be built on an area of 140 thousand square meters by 2018, and is designed to be a self-sufficient mini-town outside the St. Petersburg residential area. The offices of the Gazprom Neft company, the oil arm of Gazprom, and other Gazprom subsidiaries will be at the center of the project. Earlier, Gazprom wanted to build Okhta Center with a 400-meter tall skyscraper on the Okhtinskaya Cape in central St. Petersburg. The decision caused protests from community and the company withdrew the project late last year and sold the plot of land.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has given the go ahead for the construction of the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by signing a US$ 1.2 billion contract with Bin Laden Group on August 2. As reported by ctbuh.org, at over thousand meters and a total construction area of 530 thousand square meters, Kingdom Tower will be the centerpiece and first construction phase of the Kingdom City development on a 5.3 million square meter site in north Jeddah. The tower's height will be at least 172 meters taller than the world's current tallest building, Dubai's 828 meter-tall Burj Khalifa, which was designed by Adrian Smith. Kingdom Tower will feature a Four Seasons hotel, Four Seasons serviced apartments, Class A office space, luxury condominiums and the world's highest observatory. Design development of the tower is under way, with construction to begin imminently. Foundation drawings are complete and the piling for the tower is currently being tendered. Kingdom Tower will cost approximately US$ 1.2 billion to construct, while the cost of the entire Kingdom City project is anticipated to be US$ 20 billion. AS+GG is leading an interdisciplinary design team. The great height of Kingdom Tower necessitates one of the world's most sophisticated elevator systems. The Kingdom Tower complex will contain 59 elevators, including 54 single-deck and five double-deck elevators, along with 12 escalators. Elevators serving the observatory will travel at a rate of 10 meters per second in both directions. Another unique feature of the design is a sky terrace, roughly 30 meters in diameter, at level 157. It is an outdoor amenity space intended for use by the penthouse floor. AS+GG also designed the master plan for the 230 thousand square meters Kingdom Tower Waterfront District, which surrounds the tower and which will include residential and commercial buildings, a shopping mall, high-quality outdoor spaces and other amenities. The Waterfront District provides a cohesive and pedestrian-friendly setting for Kingdom Tower while creating a pleasant neighborhood experience along the Kingdom City lakefront.

According to the Airports of Thailand (AoT) chairman Teerapol Noprampa, the executive board of AoT has approved a US$ 5.5 billion budget for the expansion of Suvarnabhumi airport, reported bangkokpost.com. The meeting agreed with the "single airport" concept favoured by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). It had approved a plan to expand Suvarnabhumi airport to enable it to handle 103 million people a year by 2024. The expansion plan is in three phases. The first stage, from 2013-2016, covers construction of a domestic passenger terminal, a third runway, car-park building for domestic passengers and internal linking road system. The projected cost is US$ 732 million. The second phase, from 2017-2020, is cost at US$ 1.47 billion and includes expansion of both domestic and foreign passenger terminals and the construction of a fourth runway. The third phase, from 2020-2024, with a total budget of US$ 3.30 billion, is for the construction of a fifth runway, additional passenger terminals and the expansion of car parking space. Mr Teerapol said the AoT plans to move its remaining services for domestic passengers at Don Mueang airport to Suvarnabhumi airport in 2016. Suvarnabhumi airport opened on October 2006 and by the end of 2007 the airport passenger traffic exceeded 40 million per year. In 2010 Suvarnabhumi airport took seventeenth place in the world by it's passenger traffic (more than 42 million per year) and fifth place in Asia, after Beijing, Tokyo, Honk-Kong and Dubai airports.

Reconstruction works in Yerevan circus will begin on August 1, said the circus director Hovhannes Gasparyan during press conference on July 24. He also added, that the whole repair budget will cost US$ 10 million. During a 2-year reconstruction it's planned to completely renovate circus building, install modern ventilation and heating systems, build a separate housing for the animals. It is also planned to upgrade the technical base of the circus and to increase sound and voice capabilities. The final performance of old circus will be held on July 31. Back in April, Yerevan mayor Karen Karapetyan signed an agreement with director of "Tashir Group" Samvel Karapetyan, for US$ 8 million investment in circus reconstruction. During latest press conference art director of circus Sos Petrosyan confirmed, that "Tashir Group" provided US$ 6 million for circus reconstruction. Yerevan circus was built in 1962, and this is the first renovation. The administration of the circus has not provided any information who will act as general contractor of reconstruction.