The Carmel Beach Towers were built on a strip of land that belonged to the Hiatt family. In this place, a regulated bathing beach was established, already in the days of the British Mandate, which became known as "Hiat Beach".
beach chalet
The history of the Carmel Beach Towers begins somewhere in the 30s with the initiative of the Hiatt family to establish a regulated bathing beach and beach facilities on part of the rift they owned. According to this, orderly bathing buildings, toilets and a restaurant are being built. The project was very successful both among the British and among the local population, both Arab and Jewish. The beach is called "Chaat Beach".
Carmel Beach
After ups and downs in costs and succession wars between the members of the Khayat family, in 1950, a group of Jewish investors bought part of the land from the Khayat family. The group founded the company "Hof Carmel Ltd" and planned to build a casino, a hotel, a boardwalk and an amusement park on the site. In practice, changing rooms, toilets and rescue services were established and business flourished. In 1966 the company fenced off the area and the beach became a "private beach" and a fee was required to enter it. The Haifa municipality's attempts to recruit investors to open the beach for hotel use were unsuccessful.
The mega project of Yitzhak Tshuva
In 1993, businessman Yitzhak Tshuva and his company Delek Real Estate entered the picture, and thus the current chapter of the project begins. With the entry of Tshuva into the project, MMI also joined the new initiative by adding additional areas and thus the mega-project was born, part of which exists today. The project, designed by the architect Ram Karmi, included a cluster of 6 towers including 1200 holiday apartments, 800 hotel rooms, a conference center and shops and all on the coastline.
The struggle of "human nature and law"
In 1996, the association "Adam Teva and Din" petitioned the High Court against the project. The petition referred to the size of the buildings, their shape - which creates a wall that blocks the view and free access to the sea, and also to the small distance from the coastline which is in conflict with TMA 13, which regulates the construction distances from the water line. Also, the petition referred to the sale of housing units in the buildings contrary to the approved plan that allows use for vacation purposes only.
The court left the "Almog" building unchanged (since it was already in the final stages of construction) but determined that the dimensions of the second building which was in the foundation stage (the "Pearl" building) must be significantly reduced and also prohibited the continued sale of the vacation apartments as residential apartments and the drying of the sea. And this is the situation as of today.
The Kiat family
The Khayat family is a wealthy Arab Christian-Greek-Catholic family. The family originated from Tire in Lebanon, and lived in Haifa from the end of the 19th century. The family members deal, among other things, in commerce and real estate and have many properties and lands in Haifa. Various family members hold a diplomatic title on behalf of Spain.
The family's name is given to Hayat Street in the lower city, adjacent to the "Bety Hayat" complex (Jaffa Road 24-26) surrounding the "Hayat Square". The Center for the Promotion of Learning in Haifa has an Arabic branch and is even named after Hayat (in memory of Habib Hayat ).
Architect Ram Karmi (1931-2013)
Ram Carmi was born in Jerusalem. His father was the architect Dov Karmi who designed many buildings in old Tel Aviv. Ram Carmi studied architecture in London. In the 60s he taught at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technion. (Full disclosure: I got to design my final project under his guidance.)
In the years 1975-79 he served as the chief architect of the Ministry of Housing.
Ram Carmi designed in partnership with his sister, the architect Ada Carmi-Melamed, a number of projects, the most famous of which is the Supreme Court building in Jerusalem. Some of Karmi's works have received much praise, such as the Supreme Court building or the Terminal 3 building in Israel - but another part has received severe public and professional criticism, such as the Central Station in Tel Aviv, the Holyland Towers at B.M. and... the Carmel Beach Towers in Haifa. Ram Karmi won the Israel Prize for Architecture in 2002, in addition to other professional awards.
Carmel Beach Monsters
In 2001, a hotel named "Meridian" was opened in the "Pearl" building, which later changed its name to "Leonardo Plaza Haifa" when it was transferred to the management of "Fatal Hotels Ltd." Even today there is a struggle on the part of the businessman Y. Tshuva and Delek Real Estate Ltd. owned by him, in order to complete the project and build the 4 towers whose construction was approved in the original plan as well as the expansion of the coastal strip by drying up the sea.
Many residents of Haifa hope that the Adam Teva and Din association will stand watch and prevent the extension of the obstruction of the view to the sea ahead of time. The towers of the Carmel Beach, which hide the view with their clumsy shape, have earned the dubious title "Monsters of the Carmel Beach" by the Haifaites.
Dear readers,
The articles in this section are based on open information published in sources such as Wikipedia and other websites and may include various historical inaccuracies arising from the aforementioned sources.
take down the ugly monsters immediately, and punish the landowners, the developers and the architects with imprisonment for the rest of their lives
There is no doubt, a monster that disturbs and blocks the beach for the public, for the landscape, for Haifa and Haifaim. A building that was built with a misleading presentation and misleading the local committee who did not exactly understand the misleading view that was presented to them (the simulation view from the sea and from above...) and thus approved this "wall"!!! Construction that is really in the prohibited area for construction on the beach!
Woe to the city if another building like this is approved in the adjacent section of land!!!
Thanks to the austerity of the monsters.
The Carmel Beach Towers are the most beautiful buildings in Haifa. It's the neighborhoods next door that look really bad and need to be demolished
The criminal is as usual the local committee that allowed this horrible monster to even come close to execution. Like the other disasters that have been approved in the city.
I wonder what investigative articles about the local committees will bring to their generations.
Like everything else in the Jewish state, corruption wins in the end.
Where was the city engineer (if there was one at all). Where was the municipality of Haifa? Why did they approve the destruction of the beach? The monster in us, silent testimony to corruption. Very sad.
Beach. Carmel was a gem with all the buildings in it including the pool that was not mentioned in the article. I never understood why they destroyed it. After all, the ugly monster was built many years later. It must be destroyed!
Every article of yours is fascinating.
And the illustration talent is amazing.
I would appreciate your information about the Burj building on Ma'ale Ha-Hat-e-Ha'ar Street in Hadar.
(under the recruiting office)
Thank you very much for your response, we will examine your proposal regarding the Burj. good week!
The ugliest building that could be built there. environmental disaster. Dismantle it and build something modern and more integrated with the landscape.
agree!!!
Karmi participated in the competition held by the entrepreneurs but did not win it and did not plan the project. Those who won it and planned the project were the architects Sefi Goldenberg and Meir Buchman.
Thanks so much for your response. See my answer to Prof. Yigal Tzmir. If you are so sure of the information, it is advisable that you act to correct it in Wikipedia. good week!
Everywhere is normal dozens of such hotels on the beach..bring lots of tourists money and development to the city. Only in Haifa is there a view without money. Tourists don't come and young people run away.
Really monsters. Poor architectural design of the buildings that the municipality approved under pressure of money. Ugly hotel. with ugly vacation units.
These towers, in my slightly educated opinion (background in architectural engineering, not concerned with this)... the place is one big planning and environmental mistake in many ways. A wall was created that separates the sea from the city, which is also cut off from the coast by the railroad. The building is very opposed to the environment and does not fit into it, and does not speak at all to the sea and the beach.
Even if the surrounding neighborhoods are just railroad neighborhoods, here was actually an opportunity to create a new conversation that corresponds with the mountain and the sea: a building with a limited number of floors, in my opinion no more than 6 or even 5, and more in width. A building with curves and arches with a minority of straight lines that somewhat follows the contour of the beach, and not a box that breaks the environment like most buildings in the city, when there are spaces in the building on the ground floors that create an open continuum between the beach and the road. The parking lot had to be underground and if there is a problem with the sea water then in the lot on the surface of the ground combined with a maximum of two closed parking floors, one on the ground and one minus. Today the raised road along the back and front of the hotels only further spoils the look and completely disconnects them from the beach. It is evident on the ground that parts of the project were abandoned at the time. You remember the articles about a 48th grade student from Rieli who barricaded himself in one of the cranes as a protest for 20 hours. There is a lot of desolation around and garbage. And remember that these are buildings that are a total of XNUMX years old.
Indeed, a project as I proposed with a stepped, long and undulating structure (perhaps I will sketch it one day), would have been more expensive to execute, but in the long run it would have been much more profitable as an attractive place for foreign residents and tourists, and an open and well-kept stretch of land between the road and the beach would have encouraged walking to the boardwalk (they really tried to plan Good).
My impression is that Israel thinks a lot about how not to think in planning, and even with all the constraints, it is possible to come up with better solutions. But of course budgets... interests... pressures...
Thanks again for your articles.
Thank you very much for your comment, have a good week!
How did you miss the most beautiful place/beach in Haifa??? I had the privilege of spending a lot of time at the place... a gathering of my friends, the place was crowded with people almost every day of the week... who needs the "monument" you built there???
Corruption politics leads to destruction who suffers the residents who pay expensive property taxes
God bless you, my friend the planner David. I did visit this place and watched the amazing sea view of Haifa. Shabbat Shalom to you, my friend, and to the surfers of Chai here on the Nega website
Thanks for your comment, have a good week!
It is a pity that the city of Haifa that even the queen of the late Mayor Aryeh Gural suffers from bad mayors.
Now the Haifa people made a unique rotation: they brought back the old bad at the expense of the young bad.
They wanted to make a riviera with towers on the beach like in Miami, stupid Haifas together with the wretched green organization destroyed and continue to destroy the city, luckily for us a small part of the project was able to materialize and we got a tourist gem and one small normal beach to bathe come, mountain Haifa, stupid greens, a city like Tel Aviv bypassed Haifa in the 10th round twice is in a different league, where were the days when apartment prices in Tel Aviv and Haifa were equal... In short, the Greens organization should change its name to the Stupid Organization.
Partially saved Haifa
Monsters as skins. It is unbelievable how such a thing was approved, with serious consequences for the quality of life of everyone living in the area. Just unbelievable.
The example of Tzipora's words is the Shalach family, the privileged Christian family in Israel: representatives of the Uthicans for over 700 years who decided over 20 years ago to leave for Spain
They flourish in it financially and do not return.
When we have a real root
And we are connected to the Land of Israel, the Torah of Israel and the people of Israel, we are all one unit and in prayers for an army soldier.
Yona Yahav and the corruption gang are already busy with the next monster that will usurp the casino and the historic pool area which was an open public space - a Bat Galim hotel or a huge event hall in Bat Galim under the guise of a now re-promoted hotel.
An addition of 3-4 floors, and now at the height of audacity, the construction of an entire wing that will block more from the beach to the boardwalk..
Ram Karmi's victory in the Israel Prize tarnished the award by the blundering Ram Karmi and the abundance of failed planning.
The destruction of Mitzna in Haifa deserves to be remembered despite the very short memory of the city's residents who returned the
Yahav for another term of destruction. Mitzna destroyed the sea, allowed the Bahá'í gardens to be fenced and not allow public passage even though they promised between the Carmel and the settlement, shaved a huge hole in the mountain for a failed school in a bad location in Stella Maris to this day this wound is clearly visible, destroyed the coastline with the horrific Allenby Interchange, allowed his friend Zeevi to build Another illegal floor in Elisha Towers..
more and more. Total corruption.
The worst of them was the Carmel Beach failures.
Thank you for your response, I wonder if and when you will have a positive response about something happening in Haifa. Shabbat Shalom!
Why give credit to a clan that originates from an enemy country - that now wants to conquer and make us disappear and ignore the history that preceded this period and who received the territory and those before them and before them?
The full story here is not 100 years old but 4000 years old and our ancestors were expelled and displaced from their land in countless violent incidents because of their religion and why should we believe and accept those who suddenly appeared in the last 100 years and who claim to be the legal owners of the land?
Sorry for your comment. This is not about giving credit to the complex history of this country.
The Carmel Beach towers were designed by the late architect Sefi Goldenberg of the Buchman office in Tel Aviv, not Ram Karmi. It is worth noting the mistake in a prominent place.
Thank you very much for your response, Mori and Rabbi! Indeed, the architects Meir Buchman and Sefi Goldenberg planned the project initiated by the "Hoof HaCarmel Ltd" company in 1978, an initiative that was not realized. I skipped over this chapter in my article, so as not to overextend. But Ram Karmi designed the project of the "Hoof Carmel 88 Ltd" company from 1993, part of which is the one that was built. See the entries "Hiat Beach" and "Ram Karmi" at he.wikipedia.org. Shabbat Shalom!
It's no longer simple to open the HEF/864A program
according to which the towers were approved in 1978...
You can immediately see the correct facts:
* The project was designed by the architects Alfer and Alfer Co.
* It is allowed to use the buildings for both a hotel and apartment hotels
* There is no drying up of the sea in the plan at all and it ends in the west with a public promenade along the seashore.
Thanks to ancient people like the respected Dr. Haifa will remain Kiryat Tivon, a city of drug addicts, pigs and ultra-Orthodox, before they die they will move to old people's homes in the central area because their descendants ran away from Haifa a long time ago.
These are the people who know how to speak and write in a local newspaper to show their grandchildren
In Tel Aviv there is no separation of road and train between the city and the sea. In Haifa there are only greens who wag their tails guarding the lives of the pigs