Loss of iconic building saddens Riyadh expats

Expats who have been residing in the Malaz area of Riyadh for several years have expressed sadness over the ongoing demolition of an old building on Sitteen Street. The building was commonly referred to as Akaria One and was considered iconic. For me, the building had sentimental value, said Muhammad Baksh, a caretaker at a nearby building. After arriving in the Kingdom more than three decades ago, my friends and I would routinely visit the place at night for window shopping to pass time and ward off homesickness. The building used to have shops selling various products, a travel agency and a bank on the ground floor, while offices of different firms occupied the upper floors. The building had been hit by fire before the demolition began. Many expats used to visit the place during weekdays and in the afternoon on weekends, said Cenon Sagadal, an RCBC-Telemoney representative who has been working in the Saudi capital since 1988. It was popular back then. One reason for this is the fact that there were not many malls in the Saudi capital. The only mall existing at the time was the Akaria Mall along Olayah Street. Euromarche was too far for the residents of Malaz. The building is being demolished to make way for bigger and more modern skyscrapers, he said. Tenants had been given two years notice about the demolition. Tenants have moved out of the building in search of more spacious and accessible offices, he said. I had forecast that more offices and stores would follow suit at the time; I was not wrong, he said. A couple of years ago, the convenience store beside it also closed down. It was then that I knew that regular customers of this store would go somewhere else. Indeed, customers eventually began frequenting new and gleaming malls in various parts of the city, in addition to parks. The building will be gone, but its memory will be etched in my mind forever, he said. I routinely used to call my wife home from the pay phone in front of it before cellphones made their appearance. I used to visit stores and shops inside the building to see what I could send home through a door-to-door service before leaving on my annual vacation, said Boy Pacheco, the manager of a Filipino restaurant who has been in the Kingdom for the last 22 years. The travel agency and a local bank took a huge chunk of the ground floor, he said. In fact, it was known after the bank.

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Loss of iconic building saddens Riyadh expats