The Israel Diamond Exchange and the Ramat Gan Municipality has given their answer to the new office buildings under construction in Tel Aviv: the Diamond Exchange will triple its space of its three building to 350,000 square meters and increase the number of floors to 76. Sources inform ''Globes'' that Diamond Exchange president Yair Sahar and architect Prof. Moshe Tzur today presented to the Ramat Gan Municipality a plan to develop three buildings owned by the Diamond Exchange at 1-3 Jabotinsky Street. The plan calls for adding floors to the existing buildings - Shimshon, Maccabi, and Yahalom - without demolishing them or vacating their tenants. The plan was jointly prepared with Ramat Gan city engineer Haim Cohen
Under the plan, the 11,500-square meter 23-floor Shimshon Building will be enlarged to 52 floors with 65,000 square meters. The 23,000-square meter 28-floor Maccabi building will be enlarged to 55 floors with 110,000 square meters, and the 46,000-square meter 36-floor Maccabi Building will be enlarged to 76 floors with 137,000 square meters. Altogether, the three buildings will be expanded to 350,000 square meters, including 30,000 square meters of commercial space. Bridges will be added to the complex.
Sahar said, "The Israel Diamond Exchange is the largest of the world's 28 diamond exchanges. It has 3,500 members and 100,000 square meters of space. 20,000 people enter daily, including 13,000 employees, a third of them haredim (ultra-orthodox). The diamond industry's export turnover is $10 billion, a quarter of Israel's industrial exports. As a consequence, more work space is needed, especially in view of the growth in new immigrants from the US, Belgium, and Russia who work in the business. The Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan was inaugurated in 1968, and there is now a need to expand it, including for hotels."
The Diamond Exchange was built as the first luxury business complex in metropolitan Tel Aviv, and was an icon from the 1960s through the 1980s. It has since expanded along with subsequent business centers in the Tel Aviv area. The new plan has the blessing of the Ramat Gan Municipality and will be presented to the Ramat Gan Local Planning and Building Commission on Sunday.
The Ramat Gan Municipality said today, "The Diamond Exchange's three buildings, which were once the highest in metropolitan Tel Aviv, will again become so. A new urban skyline will be created, which will symbolize and strengthen anew the Diamond Exchange as Ramat Gan's business center."
No additional parking is planned for the Diamond Exchange, despite the expansion, in line with the limited parking standards currently set by the Ministry of the Interior, in order to encourage the exchange's employees to use the train and the future light rail to get to work.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 22, 2013
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