Herods Hotel to open in Jerusalem

Yoav Igra, owner of luxurious Eilat hotel, to build branch in capital together with David Fattal. Some $120 million to be invested in project, which will include rooftop swimming pool, conference center and one of Israel's biggest spas

Reuters | Published: 01.24.10, 07:52

Yoav Igra, the architect and owner of the Herods Palace Hotel in Eilat, is planning to build another branch of his hotel – this time in Jerusalem. The new Herods will be built next to the Plaza Hotel, as part of a partnership with David Fattal.

The hotel is expected to include a conference center, a Vitalis Spa – which will be one of the biggest in Israel, and a swimming pool on the roof with a view of the city. The hotel's construction is estimated at about $120 million.

"Jerusalem needs more hotels, and we have a very good opportunity to build in the city," says Igra, who entered a partnership with David Fattal several months ago, after the latter bought the Azorim Tourism company and became a co-owner of the Herods Eilat compound.

"As far as I am concerned, after two years of managing the hotel I am now returning to what I enjoy most: Planning, initiating and creating projects. Fattal knows about hotels more than anyone else, and so I feel very comfortable doing this project with him," Igra adds.

6-star hotel

He says the Jerusalem hotel will have 14 floors and about 350 rooms. The top four or five floors will be the Vitalis floors, and the hotel's roof will have a swimming pool with glass windows.

"All over the world, spas are membership clubs, and this is one of the goals of building the Vitalis in Jerusalem on the hotel's top floors, as this will create a customer loyalty to the hotel."

According to Igra, "Our plan is to give the hotel a unique Jerusalemite style, not a hotel of concrete. We want it to be a hotel with the city's smells, with the city's clothing and with the city's atmosphere, but not so much a religious hotel.

"This hotel will be on the highest level in Israel today. It's true that there is no hotel ranking in Israel, but its ranking will be six stars, and I'm only saying this in order to provide a measure of what we are planning there."

He says he hopes the permit and objection process will be completed within a year and a half to two years, with the help of all the involved ministries. "Two years later, we may be able to inaugurate the hotel," he estimated cautiously.