Skyscraper approved for Tel Aviv's Beit Ma'ariv site

The Tel Aviv Local Planning and Building Commission has approved a plan for a 55-story skyscraper on the site of Beit Ma'ariv. The plan was initiated by the landowner, Israel Land Development Company (TASE: ILDC), controlled by Ofer Nimrodi, which once owned the building that was the headquarters of Hebrew daily "Ma'ariv". Architect Moshe Tzur designed the skyscraper

The current plan for the site allows a seven-story office building. The new plans increases the building rights to allow a 55-story tower with 34,000 square meters of office, commercial, and hotel space, as well as an underground parking garage. 1,100 square meters will be registered in the name of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality for public use.

The newspaper "Ma'ariv" owned the building on Carlebach Street, named for its first published. In 2009, Israel Land Development purchased the property from its then-subsidiary, Ma'ariv Holdings Ltd., for NIS 32.5 million, even though an assessor hired by the newspaper valued the property at NIS 70 million, including potential planning for the site. After Nimrodi sold "Ma'ariv" to IDB Holding Corp. Ltd. (TASE:IDBH), then controlled by Nochi Dankner, the newspaper continued to rent the building from Israel Land Development. In September 2012, IDB sold the newspaper to Shlomo Ben-Tzvi

Ben-Tzvi vacated the property and moved the newspaper's staff to a new site in Jerusalem last year.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 8, 2014