ByJERUSALEM POST STAFF

Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, announced Tuesday the official tender for the relocation of the company headquarters from Tel Aviv to Holon. As part of the tender, the company will leave its historic offices at 9 Lincoln Street in Tel Aviv. A 25-30 story building will be erected on the site of the company’s current offices, which will include housing units, offices, and a boutique hotel.

The contractor who wins the tender for the land in Tel Aviv will build the new company headquarters in areas currently occupied by Mekorot in Holon. The new Mekorot headquarters will accommodate 400 people, including Mekorot staff and its Shaham subsidiary as well as a national training center for various water professions. The plan is for the construction of a 5-story building that will contain 17,000 sq.m. of office space. The Mekorot headquarters will be built according to "green" construction standards, with the roofs of the building covered with solar installations for generating electricity from renewable energy and a parking lot with charging stations for electric vehicles. Mekorot will not leave its existing headquarters in Tel Aviv until the new building is completed.

The company’s CEO, Eli Cohen, stated that “this is a historic move in which the company is clearing areas in favor of urban development. The location of the company’s headquarters and the proximity to the light rail stations that will operate in Tel Aviv will allow workers to use public transportation to get to and from work. The money that will go into the company’s coffers will be used for the ongoing and planned development of the national water system, and the return may reduce and even prevent future increases in the water tariff that were intended to finance Mekorot’s national development features (about NIS 1.8 billion a year).”