What the building is

The Red Sea Central Distribution Center, referred to on site as the CDC, is a 50,600 m² logistics warehouse for The Red Sea Real Estate Co. in the West Region of Saudi Arabia, with Khatib & Alami as consultant and Youssef Marroun Contracting Co. as contractor.

The published scope describes it as a 14 m high steel structure logistics warehouse building providing a one-stop-shop service, covering bulk storage and delivery for a wide range of generic and brand-specific products — specifically food, OS&E, and consumables.

The same client also delivered the Central Transportation Hub on this project. Delivering both a transport facility and a distribution centre for the same developer, in the same region, gave a useful view of how the two building types differ.

What one-stop-shop actually requires

The phrase one-stop-shop sounds like a marketing convenience. In practice it is a hard operational requirement, and it changes the building.

Combining food, OS&E and consumables in one facility means a single building has to handle inventory with completely different characteristics. Food has expiry and temperature requirements. OS&E — operational and maintenance equipment — is irregular in size and awkward to rack. Consumables are high-volume and fast-moving. Combining them means the racking strategy, the picking routes, and the internal zoning all have to accommodate the least convenient of those profiles.

The consequence is that a one-stop-shop facility is rarely organised as one space. It is divided into zones with different densities and different handling regimes, which puts the architectural layout, the slab, the loading interface, and the fire strategy in direct tension with each other.

  • 14 m high steel structure logistics warehouse
  • 50,600 m² total area
  • One-stop-shop model covering food, OS&E and consumables
  • Bulk storage and distribution in a single facility

The inserted mezzanine

The most significant architectural decision visible in the building is the inserted mezzanine office. Rather than placing administration in a separate block, the office floor is set into the warehouse volume above the operating floor, with a glazed balustrade overlooking the racking and distribution space.

This is efficient in plan terms, and it has a real effect on how the building is used. Supervisory and administrative staff are present above the operation they are coordinating rather than in a separate building across a car park, which changes how quickly a problem on the floor gets escalated.

[VERIFY: was the mezzanine at the level and position shown, and was the level set by the racking height or by the office programme?]

Reading the interior

The warehouse interior shows the high-bay racking and mezzanine structure working together, with the exposed roof structure, sprinkler distribution, and a clear floor plate marked out for traffic and storage zones.

The long external elevation reads as a single horizontal band rather than a series of separate volumes, which is a common and effective move for a building of this length — it avoids the fragmentation that comes from articulating a 50,000 m² facade.

[VERIFY: add anything specific about documentation or coordination on this project. It is the largest building in the portfolio and readers will expect detail.]

Project facts

Published project data:

  • Client: The Red Sea Real Estate Co.
  • Consultant: Khatib & Alami
  • Contractor: Youssef Marroun Contracting Co.
  • Location: Red Sea, West Region, Saudi Arabia
  • Area: 50,600 m²
  • Structure: 14 m high steel building
  • Category: Logistics warehouse building
  • Status: Completed