Last week work began on the demolition of Jerusalem's flour mill on Yosef Weitz Street. It will be replaced by 'Ir Olam,' a unique mixed-use project planned by architect Avner Yashar, with office and commercial space, housing and hotels, and a unique design rarely seen in the Israeli capital.
The project is being developed by ISA Group, managed by co-CEOS Akiva Zorbein and Shalom Greiba, on a 3.375 acre site beneath Givat Shaul on the road to Har Nof and the Jerusalem Forest. The site is near Road 16, the new western Jerusalem entrance highway.
The planned project includes two long buildings six to seven floors high and two 25-floor towers with 3,000 square meters of commercial space, 5,000 square meters of office space, a 940 square meter events hall, a 1,825 square meter - 160-room hotel, and apartments in the interior of the project. 'Ir Olam' has yet to receive final planning approval so the final dimensions of the project are not yet certain.
Yashar said, "The location is very interesting because Givat Shaul was once an industrial zone far from the city where the Angel bakery and flour mill were built. Dramatic things are happening there. The first is Road 16 the new entrance highway to Jerusalem which comes right up to the southern side of the project and will be a major new entrance to the city. The second is that there will be a Jerusalem light rail line on the main road above the project, Kanfei Nesharim Street, on which construction has already begun. Ultimately, industrial enterprises will leave for more contemporary activities. Our project sits on the seam between the Kiryat Moshe residential neighborhood and the margins of industry. It's a strategic location in which to create change.'
Yashar added, 'Jerusalem is undergoing a very big transformation in everything related to real estate development. Once they only did government buildings and the economy itself did not get going. There is now a large amount of building of housing and businesses both in the heart of the city and the suburbs. The city is really flourishing. The planning authorities are also reexamining how to build. We meet the condition for building with stone but in a new way with silo structures and the bridge above the highway, which are very impressive. It isn't perhaps beautiful but it has the major power of a fleeting and past world. We wanted to preserve something of that spirit with the daring of a new project."
The project is on the edge of Kiryat Moshe, a Jerusalem neighborhood built in the 1920s as a garden suburb and today inhabited by the national religious and ultra-orthodox communities. A 100 square meter, four-room apartment in Kiryat Moshe Street is on the market for NIS 2.75 million and a 63 square meter three room apartment in Levi Eliezer Street is on the market for NIS 1.98 million. Office space in the Atid Tower in Givat Shaul is being leased for NIS 78 per square meter and a work space is for rent for Nis 4,500 per month for 138 square meters.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 29, 2021
Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2021