The plan for building a new office and residence for the prime minister is underway. The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Commission, headed by Dalit Zilber, yesterday approved for deposit the plan for moving the prime minister's office and residence to a 33-dunam (8.25-acre) site in the Kiryat Haleom neighborhood at the entrance to Jerusalem. The project, whose estimated cost is NIS 650 million, is slated for completion in the next decade. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously attacked a plan on the same site with a similar cost sought by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, and suspended it. The previous project from 2009, which was termed grandiose, was dropped, and a new plan with the same cost, but a different design, has now been approved and deposited.
The Prime Minister's Office is currently located near the planned site in Kiryat Haleom (a site that contains the Knesset building, the Supreme Court building, many government buildings, and a Cinema City complex). The current prime minister's residence is located on Balfour St. in the Talbieh neighborhood. The area for the new project is located between Yitzhak Rabin Blvd., Sixth President Blvd., and HaAliyah St., north of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and west of the Kiryat Haleom parking lot, and has been reserved for this purpose since 1993.
According to the Ministry of Finance's statement, the design includes a complex containing both the Prime Minister's Office, with its various departments, and the official prime minister's residence. The planned office building, which occupies most of the plan, is to have "two arches encompassing a round ceremonial plaza, while the residence is located northwest of it, and also contains a covered plaza designed for hosting," the statement said.
The building will be between five and eight storeys high, similar to the urban construction surrounding it, and will have 60,000 sq.m. of built-up above-ground space. The site is surrounded by a fence built along Rabin Blvd. and Sixth President Blvd. Two rows of trees will be planted along the surrounding streets.
The Planning and Building Commission stressed that the handling of the site would allow, among other things, continued use of all of Kiryat Haleom, including the government complex (Kiryat Hamemshala), which is designated to receive a substantial mass of additional government ministries and government institutions currently operating around Israel.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 13, 2015
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