Ramat Aviv Mall

Ramat Aviv Mall (קניון רמת אביב)

Ramat Aviv Mall and the office building above it
Location	Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel
Coordinates	32°06′44″N 34°47′45″E / 32.11222°N 34.79583°E / 32.11222; 34.79583
Address	Einstein Street 40
Opening date	September 5, 1997
Management	Uri Abel
Owner	Melisron, owned by Ofer Brothers Group (73.4%), Migdal (26.6%)
No. of stores and services	140
No. of anchor tenants	3
Total retail floor area	17,800 square metres (192,000 sq ft)
No. of floors	2
Parking	1550
Website	Ramat Aviv Mall

Ramat Aviv Mall (Hebrew: קניון רמת אביב) is a shopping mall at 40 Einstein Street, in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv. At a rent of $1,804 per square meter, it is Israel's most expensive mall and the 35th most expensive mall in the world. Its gross leasable area is 17,800 square meters and it has 140 stores in two retail floors. Above the shopping is an office building called Ramat Aviv Mall Tower. The entire project—tower and mall—has a gross area of about 80,900 square meters. The mall is valued at 1.699 billion shekels, or 470 million dollars.

The plan to construct the mall was announced in 1989. This plan was met with hostility by the residents of Ramat Aviv, who feared that the mall would damage their quality of life. Betsy Winer, of the Jerusalem Post, wrote, "I was opposed to its [the mall's] construction in the first place, citing it as an ugly, unnecessary eyesore - the product of greedy, rapacious entrepreneurs, and having no place in a residential area." Therefore, in 1992, some 30 residents submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court of Israel to prevent Meqarqee Mercaz Ltd., the company which was going to build the mall, from receiving a license to build a shopping mall in Ramat Aviv. This caused a delay of more than a year in constructing the mall and Meqarqee Mercaz sued the residents, claiming damages of approximately $3–5 million from them. Construction of the mall began on October 11, 1993.

In November 1996, Lev Leviev, an Orthodox Jewish diamond merchant, became the controlling shareholder of Africa Israel, which owned 74% of Meqarqee Mercaz. Although he first said that "he would not let religious considerations influence the management of the company", in March 1997 he declared that the mall would be closed on Sabbath and he required the restaurants in it to be kosher. This caused a major controversy and led to protests from Omri Padan, head of McDonald's Israel, from Israel Theaters, and from the residents of Ramat Aviv. Padan's and Israel Theaters' contracts allowed them to operate on weekends and the residents claimed that Leviev's decision violated the secular character of their neighborhood.Roni Milo, the mayor of Tel Aviv, even called for a boycott of the shopping mall and Dan Darin, the deputy mayor, stated that city would not grant Africa Israel new building permits if they were to close the mall on weekends. This caused Africa Israel's stock to drop by 20 percent. On May 7, 1997, Africa Israel decided to allow the McDonald's restaurant in the mall to be non-kosher. The mall and the office building above it opened on September 5, 1997. An arbitrator, Dov Levin, a retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice, was given the right to decide whether or not the cinemas and the restaurants would open on Sabbath. He ruled that they would remain closed because the Tel Aviv bylaws, although rarely enforced, state that entertainment spots and eateries must close on Sabbath. The controversy actually pleased the other store owners, who, because of the mass exposure of the mall, profited more than they expected.