East Jerusalem Getting First Mall
Daniella Cheslow | | 2 Comments | Email this
You heard it here when Jenin got a mall-ish furniture superstore. Now East Jerusalem is also joining the trend. According to Danny Rubinstein at YnetNews, the Nusseibeh family has started work on the A-Dar Mall on Salah-a-Din Street, right outside the Old City in the Sheikh Jarrakh neighborhood (Photo of Salah-a-Din Street from Wiki Images)
This is a recycling project, as the ten-story building has been in Nusseibeh hands since the Ottoman rule. In the past it was a children’s home, an infirmary and a school.
The first floors of the building will be for shops, while the higher storeys will house offices. According to Ynet, it’s “the first commercial enterprise in East Jerusalem since its [1967] annexation to Israel.”
I highly support building a commercial site in the center of town. Rather than a suburban-type shopping center at the edge of a city, which sucks out the business of small local merchants, more shops and offices in the middle of downtown can bring people to the area and help the storekeepers around it.
2 Responses to “East Jerusalem Getting First Mall”
Mike • July 31st, 2009 • 2:18 am
This sentence has perplexed me since I read on Ynet the other day:
“the first commercial enterprise in East Jerusalem since its [1967] annexation to Israel.”
East Jerusalem will certainly benefit from investment, but it’s fair to say that the Damascus Gate area is brimming with businesses and commercial activity – many of which are less than 42 years old.
Daniella • July 31st, 2009 • 6:48 pm
It’s a good question, and maybe it is worth taking the Ynet claim with a grain of salt. Maybe they mean large-scale.