Herzliya's marina (archives)
Photo: GPO
Ritz-Carlton to operate luxury hotel in Herzliya
International hotel chain set to sign agreement with Israeli Tidhar company instead of American restaurant chain Nobu, which canceled its plans to operate hotel over Arena Mall
The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain is coming to Israel
and will operate a hotel which the Nobu hotel and restaurant chain was planning to open at Herzliya's marina, Yedioth Ahronoth's economic newspaper Calcalist learned recently.
According to the original plan, the restaurant chain – whose main partner is American actor Robert De Niro – was slated to run a 230-room luxury hotel for the Tidhar company, owned by Danny Rubinstein and Gil Geva, which initiated the project.
About a year ago, Tidhar signed an agreement to run the hotel together with a group of franchisers of the Nobu Hotel and Residence company in Israel: Adi Strauss, his sister Irit Koffler and Danny Rubinstein – the owners of the Marina Resort company.
Recently, however, the Nobu company reported that it had decided to cancel its plans to build an international lineup of hotels due to the global financial crisis, and has therefore also canceled its plan to build a first hotel outside the United States.
According to information obtained by Calcalist, after holding talks with several leading bodies in the hotel industry, the Ritz-Carlton chain is scheduled to sign month a final agreement for running the hotel in Herzliya with Tidhar this month.
A delegation of the chain's representatives was expected to arrive in Israel in September to finalize the deal, after approving its first draft agreements.
Freezing plans
About a year an a half ago, the heads of the Nobu chain held a press conference in London to announce their decision to start an international hotel chain. The first hotel was slated to open in Manhattan. About a year later, however, the chain eventually released a statement saying it was freezing its plans until further notice.The Nobu restaurant chain has 11 branches across the United States and eight other branches in Europe, Asia and Australia.
The Ritz-Carlton chain is a subsidiary of American giant hotel chain Marriott. The chain, which was founded in 1927, has today some 70 hotels in 23 countries, most located in central cities in the countries it operates in.
The Israeli hotel is slated to include two buildings over the southern part of the Arena Mall, which will be built as part of a combination deal signed in 2006 by Tidhar and the hotel's original owner, Motti Zisser, who held two-thirds of the rights to the compound and the Ofer Brothers company. As part of the combination deal, Tidhar committed to building the two buildings in exchange for ownership rights to one of them.
Marina Resort and the Tidhar Group said in response that they would report of developments on the hotel, "if and when there is anything to say about this matter."
