High-rises of up to 100 stories are in the works in Tel Aviv.
By JOHN BENZAQUENTel Aviv High rise 521(photo credit: Courtesy)
Together with changes in demographics and real-estate preferences, it can be said that the style of living in Tel Aviv is undergoing dramatic and even revolutionary changes.The most visible and striking change is the number of tall buildings going up in Tel Aviv and the change in the clientele that acquires residences in these dwellings.Residential tower blocks 40 stories high are the norm in Tel Aviv, and in the near future even taller buildings can be expected. The Moshe Aviv Tower in the Diamond Bourse compound in Ramat Gan rises to a height of 68 stories and a building of similar height is planned to go up opposite it.This tower is not exclusively residential; The lower floors are commercial, another 57 floors are offices.Only the top 11 floors are used for residences. The building planned opposite will be multi-functional and it will have more residential floors than the Moshe Aviv Tower does.The reason for this trend is obvious. Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Givatayim suffer from a chronic lack of land to build on, and consequently land is very expensive.The most efficient use of land for building purposes is to build as high as possible.Another trend is to build small apartments.A shortage of land is a trait common to all large cities.Consequently, the average apartments in cities such as Tokyo and New York are small.This trend is also becoming evident in Israel, especially in Tel Aviv – a city in which the vast majority of under-40s are single, as is a substantial proportion of the population even beyond that age.Because of changing lifestyles, people tend to marry late, if at all. The number of married couples splitting up is constantly increasing. Singles with no children need smaller apartments. For families with no children, living in a high-rise building poses few inconveniences, whereas living in a 40-story building may be less appropriate for raising children.Canada-Israel is one of the leading companies in Israel that constructs high-rise residential buildings.The company’s vice president, Ofer Feldman, told Metro, “We at Canada-Israel have been aware of this developing trend for a number of years. We have developed an expertise in building high-rise residential tower blocks and we also build small apartments not usually associated with high-rise residential buildings. The trend to build higher will continue; there is no alternative.The acute shortage of land in Tel Aviv and the surrounding areas makes this imperative.”High-rise buildings are a necessity but they should be built in a way that does not impede the skyline of the city. The Tel Aviv municipality promotes building highrise residential towers because of the lack of land, but it tries to concentrate high-rise buildings in certain areas of town. In Tel Aviv it is in Park Tzameret, north of the central bus station in Hamedina Square; in Ramat Gan- Givatayim it is in the diamond exchange area; in Ramat Gan-Bnei Brak it is the area adjacent to the Ramat Gan National Stadium.Currently there are many high-rise residential tower blocks being built and in the planning stages.Canada-Israel is building two residential skyscrapers in the Park Tzameret area: W-Prime and W-Boutique. In addition, the company is building a 29-story residential building in Hamedina Square and it has just finished a 46- story residential building called W-Tower.Other residential towers in the building stages are Phase 2 of the Central Park 35-story complex in Tel Aviv; Manhattan Tower in Park Tzameret; the 31-story Faire Tower in Ramat Gan opposite the Yarkon River and the wide expanses of Yehoshua Park; and the just completely 47-story Neveh Tzedek Tower.These are indeed impressive buildings, but for the future, the sky seems to be the limit.Building permits have already been granted to build the 100-story multipurpose Egged Tower just north of the Azrieli complex; the 74-story multipurpose Elite Tower opposite the 69-story Moshe Aviv Tower and the 75-story Eurocom Tower opposite the diamond exchange compound.Oren Rozenberg, the sales manager of the Faire Group, told Metro, “I am not surprised by the fact that 100-story buildings are being planned. We also believe that because of the shortage of land for building purposes, a more economic use must be made of the available land and this means building high so as to have as many apartments possible in any given area of land.This holds true not only in the Tel Aviv area but in other large cities. We ourselves, besides building a 31- story residential tower in Ramat Gan, are also building a 40-story residential tower in Bat Yam and a 22-story residential tower in Ashdod. Both these buildings will have panoramic sea views.”High-rise residential buildings have undergone conceptual changes as well.When the trend started in earnest at the turn of the century, the target market was the wealthy upper-middle class who wanted to trade in their single-family homes in the posh areas of Savyon, Herzliya Pituah and Kfar Shmaryahu because their offspring had flown the nest and the houses were just too big for their needs.Prices were accordingly high and apartments were accordingly luxurious.Today, many of these buildings are priced for middleor even lower-middle class clientele, and prices have been adapted accordingly.This is a concept dear to the Canada-Israel company, which has very expensive penthouse apartments that cost NIS 10 million or more, but also small two- and threeroom apartments in the NIS 1.6m. to NIS 2m. range.The Faire Tower in Ramat Gan, in contrast, was built for a more deep-pocketed clientele and has four-room apartments on the lower floors for NIS 2.4m. up to a top-floor 280-sq.m. apartment with 100-sq.m. open terrace and a private rooftop swimming pool for NIS 14.8m.
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