Jerusalem may become home to a giant Apple store and education center within
three years. Apple is negotiating with real-estate giant Bet Yair for a
5,000-square-meter facility at the entrance to Jerusalem, people familiar with
the matter told The Jerusalem Post. The facility is planned to hold the world’s
first Apple Digital Library, which would be open to the public.
The
directors of Apple in Israel recently toured the site and reportedly said they
wanted to bring the country’s largest Apple store to Jerusalem for symbolic
reasons. According to city planners, the area at the western entrance to
the city will become the hi-tech economic center of Jerusalem due to the
high-speed Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train and the light rail, both of which have stops
there.
In February, the Jerusalem Municipality issued a building permit
for a 15-screen, NIS 125 million cinema multiplex, called Cinema City, located
in the same area.