The jump in sales for the Neve Tzedek by the Sea residential project under construction by ZMH Hammerman Ltd. (TASE:ZMH), Eurocom Real Estate Ltd., and the family of the Belgian diamond merchant that owns the land, suggest that luxury apartments in Tel Aviv are again attracting interest. At a press conference yesterday, ZMH said that 31 apartments had been sold in the project in the year since the marketing began, despite the economic crisis. Sales picked up after January, with 24 apartments were sold for NIS 108 million.
The luxury Neve Tzedek by the Sea project will have 149 apartments in a 30-storey high-rise and 19 apartments in a five-storey building. ZMH CEO Haim Feiglin said that company figures indicated that half the buyers were Israelis and half were foreign Jews.
In a separate development on Monday, a Tel Aviv city council meeting discussed a plan to widen Yitzhak Elhanan Street, where the project is located, to a four-lane thoroughfare. This would involve the demolition of the Beit Yaakov Seminary and the Alyn - Abrahams Institute for disabled children. The city council also discussed a proposal to add ten floors to the Neve Tzedek by the Sea high-rise.
Despite strong objections by an association of local residents, the city council approved the new floors in a 13 to 10 vote.
Neve Tzedek residents are particularly upset that the city council voted to demolish the Beit Yaakov Seminary and transfer it to Bnei Brak, while they have been infuriated for years about the lack of local schools.
"Instead of building a school, the municipality is demolishing one in order to build a multilane road that will turn the neighborhood into a major artery," the association told the city council.
In response, Feiglin said, "The fact that, every morning, 1,000 girls come from Bnei Brak by a large number of buses harms Neve Tzedek. These pupils will get a new school at our expense in Bnei Brak, and the vacated area will be used for a road and 2,000 square meters of built-up space for use by local residents for their educational needs."
ZMH is controlled by the Feiglin and Ben-Avraham families. Its share rose 3.6% today to NIS 3.76, after rising 5% yesterday. Eurocom Real Estate is a unit of Eurocom Group, owned by Shaul Elovitch.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 22, 2009
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