Hagag Group Real Estate Development Ltd. (TASE: HGG), controlled by Tsahi and Ido Hagag, has notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) that in a partnership agreement with the company owned by Ronen Hatzor and Ronen Ben-Moche, it has acquired 18 dunams (4.5 acres) of land in Tel Aviv's Ludwipol neighborhood, adjacent to the Kibbutz Galuyot interchange. In exchange for exercising the option, Hagag Group will pay NIS 250 million. The land has rights for construction of 73,000 square meters of commercial and office space and the urban masterplan allows these rights to be enlarged to 160,000 square meters.
The Ludwipol neighborhood in south Tel Aviv is a small, forgotten triangular island of some three acres, squeezed between the Ayalon Highway, Road 1 and Road 461 by Kibbutz Galuyot Interchange. The neighborhood is named for Avraham Ludwipol, the first editor of the Polish Zionist newspaper Hatzofe. About 20 families live there in small houses with gardens, and there are dozens more who own land. The first families came to Ludwipol in 1949, when it was an agricultural settlement on the banks of the Ayalon stream, after leaving Tel Aviv's Kerem Hateimanim neighborhood near the Carmel Market.
The rural atmosphere was threatened as the authorities drew up all sorts of future building plans. The big change came in 1978, with the completion of the Jerusalem - Tel Aviv Highway (Road 1), which ended adjacent to Ludwipol, and the subsequent construction of the Ayalon Highway (Road 20) and the Kibbutz Galuyot Interchange, which connected the two highways. In the 1990s some of the buildings in Ludwipol were demolished to make way for the Heil Hashirion Bridge on the Ayalon Highway South to Holon, trapping the neighborhood between three major highways.
In 2015, the residents promoted an urban building plan, designed by architect Hillel Schoken, for the construction of 57,000 square meters of office space. The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality insisted that the area was not appropriate for housing, because of the traffic, noise and pollution.
In October 2020, the residents and other landowners signed an option deal with developer Ronen Hatzor's Q Real Estate worth an estimated several hundred million shekels. The deal is only valid for a specific amount of time and subject to certain conditions. The rights have now been sold on to Hagag Group.
Projects built by the Hagag Group in Tel Aviv recently include the MOMA complex in Florentin, H-Tower Recital and Shadal Tower on Rothschild Boulevard.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 18, 2021.
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