Diamond Exchange area turns into luxury residential spot

'The area offers very good business opportunities to real estate entrepreneurs.'

By JOHN BENZAQUEN
Ramat Gan 88 224 (photo credit: Courtesy )
Ramat Gan 88 224
(photo credit: Courtesy )
The Diamond Exchange district in Ramat Gan, or as it is more commonly known the Diamond Bourse industrial area, has turned into one of the countries leading business centers and high end residential areas. Twenty years ago it housed a decrepit industrial zone of small industries. Today it is a powerhouse of business and economic activity. The Diamond Exchange, which is the center of the area, houses most, if not all, of the important diamond merchant houses operating in Israel both local and foreign. But besides representing the center of the diamond industry it is also an important financial center. The Israeli headquarters of the State Bank of India is located in the area as well as the headquarters of the Israel Mizrachi Bank. The compound is also an important hi tech center with the presence of the headquarters of Checkpoint, as well as other smaller hi tech companies located in the area. "This area of Ramat Gan has become Israel's premier business center. It is attracting the head offices of both local and international companies and it is also attracting the foreign embassies and the offices of overseas government agencies," Yoram Blumenthal, director of corporate services at the INTERISRAEL real estate consultants told The Jerusalem Post. "In the past two or three years the embassies of Ghana, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Jordan Norway Holland the EEC and more have relocated their offices form Tel Aviv to the Ramat Gan bourse area. The British also relocated the premises of the British council from Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv to here. And I have reason to believe that this trend will increase in the future." The transformation of the district into an important business center has had an impact on the real estate scene. The area is saturated with modern office buildings and more are going up all the time. The Aviv tower, Israel's highest building with over 60 floors, is an important landmark and in the near future a modern tower building of 70 floors will be built opposite at the site of the old Elite factory. "The area offers very good business opportunities to real estate entrepreneurs. Our company is building an ultra-modern 21-story office building on the area on 2,000 square meters of land which my father bought in 1987 when the area was a rundown industrial zone," Chen Hogi, vice president of the Sason Hogi Development Company told the Post. "Demand for office space is brisk. The district has about 750,000 square meters of office space and anything which comes into the market is snapped up. Our office building will be completed in March of next year and already 50 percent of the space has more or less been rented." There is no doubt that the Diamond Exchange district in Ramat Gan is one of the countries leading business centers. But what is less well known is the fact that it is also becoming an important high end residential area. This is because of a trend, new to this country in which high-level executives prefer to live near their place of work. This is happening in the Tel Aviv financial district with three high-end residential tower blocks going up within, walking distance of the financial district and it is happening in the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange district. The Africa Israel company already constructed a number of expensive luxury residential buildings in the district over 10 years ago. High-flying executives are starting to occupy apartments on the top floors of the Sheraton City Tower Hotel and on the top floors of the 60-story Aviv Tower located in the area. The same concept is planned for the 70-story tower opposite, offices on the lower floors and apartments on the higher floors. This trend will increase real estate prices in the surrounding area of Ramat Gan and its northwestern corner which is not considered the most expensive in the city as well as surrounding areas. Gindi Holdings is also constructing its twin 29 story luxury residential tower blocks in the district.