{"id":438492,"date":"2026-02-21T20:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/438492\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T20:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:21:16","slug":"i-built-canary-wharf-ill-do-the-same-for-saudis-grand-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/438492\/","title":{"rendered":"I built Canary Wharf. I\u2019ll do the same for Saudi\u2019s grand designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Captain Mohammed Abdullah Alsaidalani fires up the Yamaha engines on his catamaran, Lamia, and speeds past pods of dolphins as he sails from Shebara resort to Turtle Bay on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia. Waiting for me at the office of the Red Sea Global development company is its group chief executive, John Pagano.<\/p>\n

You may not know his name, but you may well know his work. As managing director of the Canary Wharf development in London\u2019s Docklands, he built the 3.5 million sq ft mini-Manhattan on Thames, shepherded it through bankruptcy and set it on course to become one of the most successful real estate projects in Europe.<\/p>\n

He now faces an even bigger challenge. He is the man tapped by Saudi Arabia\u2019s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS)<\/a>, to rescue the kingdom\u2019s troubled $2 trillion (\u00a31.5 trillion) giga-projects.<\/p>\n

Pagano, 66, has made a success of the $30 billion Red Sea Global giga-project<\/a> \u2014 opening an international airport and 11 busy hotels, with another 16 on the way, in a series of developments masterplanned by the English architect Lord (Norman) Foster. \u201cWe\u2019ve executed. We\u2019re delivering \u2026 which is a differentiator compared to perhaps some of the other projects,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Proposals for Sindalah, a $1 billion island resort in the Red Sea with a marina for superyachts<\/p>\n

As a result, Prince Mohammed has promoted him to new roles on nearly $1 trillion worth of the vast nation-building developments that are being scaled back as the oil price slumps and budgets are squeezed. \u201cWe\u2019re using the knowledge and experience that we developed here on the Red Sea to help other projects,\u201d Pagano says.<\/p>\n

He is now managing director at Al-Ula Development Company, which is making the northern desert town of Al-Ula a bucket-list item for many travellers, thanks to its 2,000-year-old tombs carved into rocky outcrops. Prince William visited earlier this month<\/a> during his first official trip to the kingdom.<\/p>\n

\"Prince<\/p>\n

The Prince of Wales in the desert at Al-Ula this month<\/p>\n

ISABEL INFANTES\/REUTERS<\/p>\n

Pagano is also managing director of the King Abdullah Financial District, Riyadh\u2019s equivalent of Canary Wharf, and a board member of Neom, the company behind two snazzy \u2014 but stalled \u2014 projects: Sindalah island in the Red Sea and The Line, a proposed \u00a3500 billion linear city 1,600ft tall and stretching 100 miles inland from the new Red Sea resort of Neom.<\/p>\n

All the projects are owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom\u2019s $1.15 trillion sovereign wealth fund.<\/p>\n

\"King<\/p>\n

King Abdullah Financial District, Riyadh\u2019s equivalent of Canary Wharf<\/p>\n

GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

MBS is so committed to Pagano that he recently granted him Saudi citizenship \u2014 a rare honour for a foreigner. Pagano, who was born in Toronto to a Catholic family, has also converted to Islam. \u201cI love the people. They welcomed me as part of their society. It just felt right,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What is the 40-year-old MBS like to work for, I wonder. \u201cHe\u2019s very particular as to what he\u2019s looking for. He pushes us to come up with something different that still relates to Saudi Arabia.\u201d Do the pair fight? \u201cNo,\u201d Pagano says. \u201cBut I have a way of getting my point of view across, which is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results are shiny steel hotel room pods that sit above the sea on stilts at Shebara near Saudi\u2019s Red Sea barrier reef, and hotel rooms carved into the mountainside at Desert Rock, near Turtle Bay.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The over water suites at Shebara resort<\/p>\n

KATARINA PREMFORS<\/p>\n

Pagano, sporting wraparound sunglasses, a polo shirt, blue cargo trousers and dusty trainers, looks and sounds like a nation builder, but his task is Herculean. The biggest victim of the scaling back of MBS\u2019s Vision 2030 project is the futuristic The Line. It now looks like it will be more of \u201ca hyphen\u201d \u2014 a mini township only a few miles long.<\/p>\n

Other casualties include the nearby mountain resort of Trojena, where geological and practical challenges have forced ministers to abandon plans to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games using fake snow made from water from a man-made lake. MBS insists it will be finished in time for the next winter games.<\/p>\n

Angered by \u201cdesign flaws\u201d at Sindalah, a $1 billion island resort in the Red Sea, MBS closed it shortly after the VIP opening beach party, which was attended by singer Alicia Keys and actor Will Smith in the autumn of 2024. No one knows when it will reopen.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Failed beach party left boss of Saudi Neom project high and dry<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the completion date for the world\u2019s largest new downtown district \u2014 the $50 billion New Murabba in Riyadh \u2014 is being extended and its centrepiece, Mukaab, a colossal cube skyscraper, 400 metres x 400 metres, has been shelved. It might have to be scrapped.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Plans for the 400m x 400m Mukaab cube in Riyadh<\/p>\n

NEWMURABBA<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Why is Saudi Arabia \u201cmaking a course correction\u201d \u2014 the local euphemism for the slowdown? \u201cWell, look, things happen. They do! And it\u2019s not unreasonable for a country to look at priorities,\u201d Pagano says.<\/p>\n

What he means is that since Vision 2030 was unveiled in 2016, the kingdom has taken on new projects that have hard deadlines, notably the Expo 2030 trade and culture fair and the 2034 men\u2019s football World Cup, for which 11 stadiums must be built.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Is Saudi Arabia\u2019s gilded revolution working? I went to find out<\/a><\/p>\n

MBS has also committed himself to developments of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, including an airport and high-speed rail links, to double to 30 million the number of pilgrims who visit each year.<\/p>\n

Fine. But isn\u2019t it embarrassing to slow down after making so many bold promises for 2030? \u201cNot at all. Look how far this country has come,\u201d Pagano says. \u201cIt has transformed itself. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a precedent in the world where a country has changed so much in such a short space of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe media is trying to make it an \u2018Oh, they failed\u2019 story, but that\u2019s just trying to create a negative out of a positive story. We had 122 million visitors last year to the kingdom. We\u2019re doing some things right!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sindalah\u2019s opening and rapid closing looked unprofessional, I point out. \u201cIt was rushed,\u201d he concedes. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have opened in that state. It was not completed properly. I would have made sure it was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

Sindalah was proposed as a hyper-modern luxury island destination<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/p>\n

I wonder whether it was a mistake to position The Line as a real estate project with a hard deadline, rather than a laboratory of what the quality of urban life might look like in 2040. \u201cIt is a moonshot,\u201d Pagano replies with a nod. \u201cIf you don\u2019t dream big, you don\u2019t accomplish anything. I think it motivated and inspired the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

What about claims that Saudi is using the modern developments to launder its reputation as a repressive society that does not respect human rights? \u201cBullshit. All bullshit,\u201d he says. \u201cWe believe in this. Look at what we\u2019ve built. Look at women in the workforce. The government set a goal of 30 per cent participation by 2030 and that was achieved in 2023, and that number continues to grow. We will continue to power on.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the annual \u201cDavos in the Desert\u201d financial summit in Riyadh last year, Saudi Arabia\u2019s then investment minister, Khalid al-Falih, urged the private sector to play a bigger role in the kingdom\u2019s development. \u201cGiga-projects have been taking a lot of resources from the government,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia has been running budget deficits since 2022. Ministers had sought to attract $100 billion a year of foreign investment by 2030 but by last year the figure was just $31.7 billion.<\/p>\n

The time is right to attract more private investment, Pagano insists. \u201cIt\u2019s logical. The state has primed the pump for private sector investors, just as Margaret Thatcher\u2019s government provided the infrastructure for Docklands with the Jubilee Line [Tube] extension. We built the airport, the infrastructure. We now have joint ventures with private sector utilities firms and Jumeirah and Four Seasons hotels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Number<\/p>\n

The Reichmann brothers transformed London\u2019s derelict Docklands into the Canary Wharf financial district<\/p>\n

TONY BOCK\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Pagano\u2019s road to the Red Sea has been long and winding \u2014 and involved a James Bond-style hiring. He started his working life at engineering consulting firms in Toronto before being headhunted to work in the same city for Canada\u2019s Olympia & York, the world\u2019s largest privately owned developer, run by the hard-charging Reichmann brothers. \u201cWithin a year, they said: \u2018Oh, we\u2019ve got this project in London. Would you be interested?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the late 1980s and the project was a derelict site in Docklands that would become Canary Wharf. He flew over in 1987 and took a taxi there with a colleague. \u201cWe got out and the taxi drove away. After looking around \u2014 there was absolutely nothing there \u2014 we thought: \u2018Oh, crap. How do we get back? There\u2019s no taxis\u2019. \u201d They ended up walking three miles to Tower Bridge.<\/p>\n

Pagano worked on the project for 18 years, including through Olympia & York\u2019s bankruptcy in 1992, before moving on in the noughties to the Bahamas. There he built a $3.5 billion luxury tourism resort featuring four hotels, a convention centre and a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course. In 2017, the call came from Riyadh.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way I\u2019m going to the Middle East\u201d was his first reaction. But the calls kept coming, so he flew to Riyadh and was greeted by a small private army to take care of him as MBS\u2019s guest. Pagano was then flown by private jet to the Red Sea for a helicopter tour of development sites. The helicopter landed on MBS\u2019s superyacht, moored offshore, and \u201cthe boss\u201d offered him the job of developing resorts. \u201cI was employee number 15.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he shows me around the Red Sea projects, Pagano points out that the entire 27-hotel development is \u201cwholly off the national power grid and runs 100 per cent on solar energy\u201d. He jokes that going green was \u201ca bit tricky with the Ministry of Energy\u201d in a vast petrodollar economy. He is not only building resorts; he is building villas to sell to locals and, under new laws, to foreigners.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

Pagano says he loves the people in Saudi Arabia. \u201cThey welcomed me as part of their society. It just felt right\u201d<\/p>\n

I notice that large bars are being built in hotels and snazzy minibars in the top suites. They are stocked with alcohol-free drinks for now, but most observers think booze will be available in a few years. There is already an off-licence in Riyadh. <\/p>\n

I tell Pagano that I\u2019ve seen plenty of gay couples in the hotels. \u201cSpend time in the resorts and you\u2019ll see everyone is welcome,\u201d he replies.<\/p>\n

Even though his Saudi plate is full, Pagano is plotting overseas expansion. \u201cWe changed our name a couple of years ago from the Red Sea Development Company to Red Sea Global. That was a statement of intent.\u201d Sites in Europe and across the Gulf are on the drawing board.<\/p>\n

With MBS behind him, few would bet against him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captain Mohammed Abdullah Alsaidalani fires up the Yamaha engines on his catamaran, Lamia, and speeds past pods of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-438492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}