The transition: After about 60 years inside the Tel Hashomer camp, the IDF reception and sorting base, the Bekom, will move to a new base, “Ofek Rahav”, as part of the evacuation of the IDF camp. The base will be built in the city of Ramla, which will benefit from property tax revenues.
employment: The new base will be built by the Berashit – Ofek Rahav group, owned by Shikun and Binui. It will not only build the base but also operate and maintain it for 25 years (actually 20.5 years of actual operation, after construction is completed). From the moment the agreement is signed, the company is obligated to complete the construction within 60 months, and it aims to shorten this time by a few months. Originally, the base was planned to be occupied a year ago, in March 2022, and this date was postponed by about six years.
The new base: It will be built next to Camp Rehabam of the Home Front Command, near Ramla, on an area of 450 dunams. In addition to the BCM, some of the Zrifin camps, the Trinity camp in Ramat Gan, the headquarters of the land arm near Kiryat Malachi, as well as service centers, laboratories, a regional clinic and bodies from the IDF’s personnel division will move to the new camp. According to the plan, the base will receive about 9,000 soldiers who will serve there on a permanent basis, and it is planned to provide service to about 5,000 people every day. Peled Architects is responsible for its planning, and according to the Ministry of Defense, it will be a green base, offering pedestrian paths, bicycle paths and underground parking. Solel Bona, another subsidiary of Shikun and Binui, will serve as the construction contractor, and Melem Tim will build and operate the ICT systems at the base.
The new base that will be established in Ramla / visualization: Bereishit Ofek Rahav Group owned by Shikun and Binui
The income: The Shikun Vabinui company estimates that the construction cost of the new camp, whose built area will be more than 300,000 square meters, will be about NIS 2.4 billion. The expected revenues are NIS 4 billion – of which NIS 1.38 billion after one year of operation of the project (ie around 2029), as a start-up grant.
Funding: The group will finance the construction of the project through equity and mainly from a loan amounting to NIS 1.3 billion that will be made available to it. The financing was provided by Bank Hapoalim and colleagues – the old pension funds. The loans that the company will receive are at prime interest, with the exception of the long-term interest that will be at a fixed rate – about 5.5% as of October 2022 – so this part is less affected by interest rate changes in the economy.
What will be built on the vacated land: As mentioned, the construction of the new base is part of the move to evacuate IDF bases from the center of the country. It is estimated that on the areas of the evacuated bases (some of which have already been evacuated) it will be possible to build a total of nearly 70 thousand new housing units. The cost of evacuating all the bases was estimated by the government at almost NIS 14 billion, and its income from the lands that will be marketed is expected to be much higher.
The Bekoum today / Photo: Eli Yahav
For example, more than 10,000 housing units are planned to be built on the Bokum area, which will join the thousands of apartments that are already being built in the area. According to data from recently closed tenders in Tel Hashomer – around an average price of about NIS 1.4 million for land per housing unit – this is land worth Close to NIS 15 billion.