The Georgian-Israeli tycoon, Yitzhak (Slava) Mirilashvili, who is the son of oligarch Michael Mirilashvili, has just bought a penthouse apartment in the new Ritz-Carlton project in Herzliya, Israel. He paid US$4 million for it, and the 12th-floor condominium he purchased was the last one to be sold in the building.
With its own 600 square foot balcony, the penthouse was priced at just over US$2, 500 per square foot.
The new, combined hotel and condominium residences, the property are the latest in the joint branding of real estate projects we see a lot of these days.
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The new Ritz-Carlton is located above the Herzliya Arena Mall right beside the Marina, and the project was conceived and executed by the Tidhar development company. It comprises a twelve story hotel with six floors of private residences on top, all with a rooftop swimming pool.
As is the case with most of the condominium buildings that surround the Marina in Herzliya, the new residences at the Ritz-Carlton project are designated for vacation living rather than for permanent residence. Each owner, therefore, can officially only reside for a maximum of 180 days each year, and then either rent his/her property out or leave it empty for the rest of the year.
In the past, this has been the cause of a long-running bone of contention between many of the residents of the Marina properties and the Mayor of Herzliya. Similar issues have also come up in Tel Aviv as well, with a number of the beach-front properties there.
It is all very well designed. Municipal zoning rules to encourage a particular land use, in this case, vacation accommodation, but once the properties are built many of their owners often end up wanting to stay in them full time, and it is, in the end, a shame frankly to deny them the right.
This issue has simmered but never quite gone over the boiling point, and one suspects the town councils now just look the other way a little bit. And if they don’t they certainly should.
One imagines, too, part of the business plan for the hotel may indeed be to have rental access to some of the condominiums when their owners are abroad, with their permission and to the financial benefit of both.
Yitzhak Mirilashvili will not be in the least bit concerned about such rules, as he is a major globe-trotting businessman, and to find him in his new home for 180 days in a year would indeed be something exceptional as an occurrence, therefore, anyway.
The hotel part of the new development features 115 guest rooms and 82 suites, including studios, one-and-two-bedroom suites, and the presidential suite. As Ritz-Carlton’s first luxury hotel project in Israel, the hotel features all the company’s usual high level of amenities.
Celebrity Israeli Chef Yonathan Roshfeld has partnered with the hotel to create the Samuel Herbert Restaurant at the hotel.
The hotel introduces two new bars and lounges to the city, with a Lobby Lounge and rooftop al fresco cocktail lounge for the evening, Spa, Fitness Centre and rooftop pool.
The rooftop location then transforms into a cocktail lounge bar as the sun goes down.
About the Mirilashvilis
Mikhail Mirilashvili (Michael) and his son Vyacheslav Yitzhak Mirilashvili (Slava) are Georgian-Israeli businessmen who have a 5.2% stake in the oil and gas exploration company ILDC Energy. Mikhail Mirilashvili first made his money in the 1980s through his family’s real estate and gambling interests. His business interests in Israel include the Kitaim venture capital fund and the Hoshen Argaman diamond firm.
Yitzhak Mirilashvili made headlines earlier this year with the sale of his, and his father’s remaining 40% stake in the Russian social networking website VKontakte or VK as it is just known today, for $1.12 billion.
They had bought into VKontakte right at the beginning, in 2006 after Yitzhak Mirilashvili had been studying in America and saw first hand the impact that Facebook was having in the United States on American college campuses. To purchase his stake, he borrowed the money from his dad.
The father, Mikhail, who grew up in Georgia, moved to St. Petersburg – Leningrad as it still known at that time – when he was seventeen and studied successfully to become a Medical doctor before going into business there with his family in the real estate business. Today he is the President of the Saint Petersburg Jewish Congress and a major Jewish philanthropist.
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