Sources inform ''Globes'' that Orchid Hotel Management Ltd., owned by the Nakash Brothers, has bought the Kikar Zion Hotel on Zion Square in the Jerusalem city center for NIS 80 million from Nurit Levy. The 8,000-square meter hotel has 117 rooms. Orchid Hotel will renovate the hotel, and convert it into a boutique hotel, at a cost of NIS 50 million. A rooftop restaurant, with a view of the Old City, will be added. The renovations are scheduled to be competed for Passover in 2015.
The purchase comes after Orchid Hotel Management bought Herzliya's Oceanus hotel from Azorim Investment, Development and Construction Ltd. (TASE: AZRM) for NIS 78 million.
The acquisition of the Kikar Zion Hotel increases the Orchid chain to 13 hotels nationwide, ten of which are operational, and three of which are under construction.
One of the hotels under construction is a six-floor 90-room hotel on the shore, north of the Tel Aviv Country Club. On Sunday, Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zila Zfat dismissed a petition filed by 70 landowners with property near the planned hotel against the developer, Prosperity Ltd., which is owned by the Nakash brothers. The petitioners claimed that the hotel's building permit did not conform to the plan, which allowed only four-story hotel. Zfat ruled that the building permit conformed to the plan, because the building rights were not changed.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 1, 2013
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