The sleeping beauty

Yokneam’s rural character, quality residential areas, hi-tech industrial zone and its proximity to Road 6 have turned the northern town into a rising star.

By JOHN BENZAQUEN
Yokneam 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Yokneam 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Amonth ago, the firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. in Israel published a survey of the country’s best real estate investments opportunities. Yokneam – or Yokneam Illit, as it is officially known – in the north of Israel came fourth after Rehovot, Ness Ziona and Haifa.
The main attraction of the town as a real estate investment is its location and a combination of job opportunities within walking distance from home – a concept which is taking root in the Western world.
In Israel, one of the best-known office cum residence centers is the Ramat Gan Diamond Bourse compound, where the Africa Israel Development Company and the Gindi Real Estate Development Co. have built high-rise, high-end residential tower blocks adapted to the needs and pockets of diamond merchants and brokers.
Yokneam is offering an industrial zone adapted to the needs of the hi-tech industry within walking distance of high-quality residences that are reasonably priced, according to Israeli standards.
Sharon Fouaty, owner and manager of Tivuch Mekomi, the largest real estate agency in town, told Metro, “Semi-detached dwellings sell from NIS 1.55 million, on average, while single-family homes sell for as much as NIS 2m. Spacious, fourroom apartments go for NIS 900,000.”
The combination of a large industrial park and a quality residential area works. Approximately 20 percent of Yokneam’s breadwinners are employed in local hi-tech industries.
The town offers residents a high quality of life, among other things, because it has retained its rural character and because of easy access to the national road network.
The town is located southeast of Haifa, in a hilly region of what is called Lower Galilee, at the foot of the Carmel Mountain range. It has easy access to Road 6, also known as the Trans-Israel Highway. Yokneam is 12 kilometers from Haifa, and 80 km. from Tel Aviv.
The town’s strong economic base can offer employment to most residents, but one of its major selling points is its proximity to the Trans-Israel Highway, a comfortable, 45-minute drive from Tel Aviv.
Yokneam as a residential address is much in demand these days, and the trend is reflected in its real estate prices.
It was not always so. In the not so distant past, the town was very much a backwater.
The present town was founded on the ruins of the Palestinian Village of Kira, which was destroyed during Israel’s War of Independence. It is called Yokneam Illit or Upper Yokneam because it was located above a moshav called Yokneam founded in 1937 by European immigrants.
IN 1950, Yokneam Illit was officially founded and the city began to receive new immigrants from Arab countries, mainly Morocco. The town’s economy was based on the Soltam company, an arms manufacturer that was the main employer in town and its economic mainstay. Soltam collapsed in 1980.
As an arms supplier, the company had held big contracts to supply guns and shells to Iran. When the shah fell in 1979, the Islamic regime severed all links with Israel. Soltam thus lost its largest customer and dismissed most of its work force.
Unemployment in the town rose sharply.
Genady Gurevitch, CEO of the real estate development company Almogim Holdings Ltd., told Metro, “The current prosperity of Yokneam can be traced to the outcome of the Soltam crisis. Yokneam got a new mayor, Simon Elfasi, who has been in office ever since.
Elfasi quickly realized the need to attract modern industries and persuaded the government to give the town “National Priority Area A” status for science-oriented industries.
“Approved enterprises in Yokneam Illit now enjoy the highest level of tax benefits and investment grants. In addition, companies relocating to the region can apply to the Yokneam Illit municipality for concessions in local taxes over a three-year period.
The mayor built a science-oriented industrial park, and investors started flocking in – among them Intel, Mellanox, Marvell, Medtronic, Given Imaging, Lumenis and a rejuvenated Soltam Systems.
“Yokneam’s science-oriented hi-tech industrial park is now the fourth largest in Israel.”
Almogim is building semi-detached dwellings and single-family homes, and demand is brisk. “We are also attracting buyers from the center of the country,” said Gurevitch. “The location of Yokneam and its easy access to Road 6 allows Yokneam’s residents to drive to their offices in the center of the country.”
Road 6 allows residents to drive to Netanya’s hi-tech industrial park in 25 to 30 minutes; and to Herzliya’s science-oriented industrial park in 35 to 40 minutes.
The drive to the hi-tech industrial parks in Petah Tikva and Ramat Hahayal (Tel Aviv) takes from 45 to 50 minutes, and to the hi-tech park of Rosh Ha’ayin from 55 to 60 minutes.
Prices in Yokneam are low compared to prices in the center of Israel and Haifa, but there are large price differentials within the town itself.
Because of its hilly topography, the town has a sausage shape. The oldest neighborhoods – and consequently, the least expensive – are in the north, while the newest and most expensive are in the south.
A four-room apartment in the veteran Nof Hacarmel neighborhood costs NIS 500,000, compared to up to NIS 900,000 in the new neighborhoods.
Fouaty told Metro, “Prices in Yokneam have risen sharply since 2006, and will continue to rise in the foreseeable future. Yokneam real estate prices may soon be level with those in Haifa. Right now, real estate prices for typical professional are lower in Yokneam than in the surrounding areas because the dwellings offered in the building projects of the nearby kibbutzim and moshavim are selling for over NIS 2m.”