One of central Jerusalem’s most consequential development sites has hit the market with an opening price of NIS 420 million, approximately $140 million. The Benin Complex covers roughly 10 dunams, or 2.5 acres, between Jaffa Road, HaNevi’im Street and Raoul Wallenberg Street. Its estate administrators estimate the property’s value at closer to NIS 500 million, or about $167 million. Bids are due Dec. 3 and must include a formidable NIS 35 million guarantee.

The winning bidder will receive approved development rights for two residential towers rising 29 and 31 stories, containing a combined 295 apartments. The plans also allow approximately 200 hotel rooms, commercial and public space, and about 50,000 square meters, or 538,000 square feet, of primary floor area. Roughly half is designated for housing, with another 10,000 square meters for hotels and 14,000 square meters for commerce.

Earlier descriptions of the project referred to three towers and 370 apartments, but the figures are not contradictory. The full statutory plan covers approximately 14.1 dunams and includes an adjoining parcel approved for a third residential tower. That additional parcel and its development rights are not included in the current 10-dunam sale. The offering is therefore smaller than the complete master plan, though still large enough to reshape a major section of Jerusalem’s center.

The property’s most valuable strategic feature may sit beneath it. The future Jerusalem Center heavy-rail station is being built as part of the underground extension from Yitzhak Navon Station into the heart of the capital and eventually toward the Khan Station. Municipal notices show that infrastructure and station-access work is already underway. The development plan envisions direct aboveground and underground connections between the station and buildings in the complex, while the buyer will be required to coordinate construction with Israel Railways and honor existing agreements covering land transferred to the state.

The modern towers will rise around several protected buildings from Jerusalem’s past, including the former Kaminitz Hotel, Beit Navon and Beit Pasha. The historic properties are slated for restoration and new hotel, commercial or employment uses rather than demolition. Beit Navon carries an especially fitting connection: Yosef Navon Bey was a driving force behind the original Jaffa–Jerusalem railway, while the land surrounding his former residence is now poised to become a gateway for Jerusalem’s next generation of rail service.

The land belonged to Albert Benin, a wealthy Jerusalem property owner who died unmarried and without children. His will instructed the estate administrators to continue advancing the development plan and eventually sell the site. The proceeds are expected to support a permanent fund administered through UJA-Federation of New York, financing scholarships and loans for Israeli undergraduate students studying science, technology, engineering and medicine. The estate’s path to sale also passed through a major tax dispute, with a court ultimately recognizing UJA’s role as trustee for the educational mission and granting the relevant land transactions charitable tax treatment.

The project will not be simple. Its future developer must coordinate with an active underground railway project, preserve historic structures and build at immense scale in one of Jerusalem’s busiest districts. But that combination also makes the property exceptional: approved high-rise housing, hotels, commerce, history and direct heavy-rail access concentrated on a single central-city site.

The bidding will now reveal how aggressively Israel’s largest developers and investment groups value that opportunity. Whoever wins will be buying far more than land. It will gain the chance to build a new skyline and one of the principal entrances to the future center of Jerusalem.