AmeriLEB
July 7th, 2007, 08:42 PM
New interest in old-city charm
NEXT NEIGHBOURHOOD CLEMENCEAU, BEIRUT, LEBANON: After years of postwar decay, this peaceful and relatively mixed part of town is booming again, says Ferry Biedermann
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007
Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war ripped the heart out of Beirut, the one-time "Paris of the -Middle East", both literally and figuratively. Not only was the city centre comprehensively destroyed but the cosmopolitan spirit of a place that had prided itself on the diversity of its people and the intermingling of cultures was badly damaged.
The once-upmarket area straddling Clemenceau Street in West Beirut was one of the city's most mixed neighbourhoods in the prewar era. Years of urban decay and paralysis followed the conflict but it is now booming again, partly because of nostalgia among some Lebanese for the big-city feel it once offered.
"This is the only part of Beirut that does not feel like a ghetto," says Dinna Debbas, a young photographer who started renting a beautiful old house with high ceilings and patterned tiled floors there three years ago. She likes the feeling of "anonymity" that she says the neighbourhood affords. But, above all, it is an area where Christians, Muslims and Druze, the country's three main groups, live side by side.
Clemenceau, comprising the smaller areas of Jounblat, Wardiyeh and Kantari, borders on the now partly restored city centre. While the old downtown district is being renovated meticulously, by the late prime minister Rafiq Hariri's Solidere development company, many Beirutis have not warmed to it because of its sometimes sterile feel and its exclusively high-end appeal.
Prices for new apartments in the city centre, also called Solidere after the company, vary between Dollars 3,000 and Dollars 7,000 per square metre and they are rising. Rents for shops and restaurants are so high that only the biggest or most exclusive brands can afford a downtown presence.
Many of the retail spaces stand empty and were so even before the opposition, led by the Shia Hizbollah movement, started an ongoing sit-in right in the centre of town to bring down the government. Political uncertainty keeps playing a role in Beirut's development as many businesses are relocating from the city centre to less volatile shopping districts elsewhere.
The Clemenceau area has all the advantages of a central location, between downtown and the main Hamra area of West Beirut, while offering a more authentic living experience to those who value that, says Raja Makarem, of Beirut's Ramco real estate consultancy.
And the prices are still not at the levels of Solidere. The average size of apartments is between 250 sq metres and 300 sq metres, which is on the small side by luxury Lebanese standards. Prices for new developments average between Dollars 1,800 and Dollars 2,700 per square metre.
Clemenceau was heavily damaged during the war because of its proximity to the front line. The pockmarked shell of the Holiday Inn hotel on its north-eastern corner is a reminder of "the war of the hotels", when militias used the high-rise buildings as firing positions. The most damaged blocks were torn down and Clemenceau still has a large concentration of empty plots that have now mostly been sold off to developers.
But it has taken the neighbourhood longer to become attractive than some other areas of Ras Beirut, the part of the capital that stretches from Solidere to the west. The main reason, says Makarem, was the presence of many civil war refugees who squatted in abandoned buildings. They were mainly Shia Muslims from the south who were occupying properties often belonging to Christian and sometimes Jewish families who had fled early on in the war. Only after the last of the refugees left about three years ago did Clemenceau really start to take off.
But the memory of the civil war and its forcible displacement of peoplestill sometimes impedes development. Beirut is a strongly segregated city17 years after the war ended. Christian East Beirut is overwhelmingly Christian while the Shia are concentrated in the southern neighbourhoods that bore the brunt of last summer's Israeli bombardments. Ras Beirut is more mixed, partly because of the presence of universities and other institutions, but many areas are heavily Sunni.
Marwan Naaman's family fled Clemenceau for a Christian area during the civil war. Prior to last summer's fighting between Hizbollah and Israel he had decided to move back to the neighbourhood. But the summer conflict made him change his mind because Shia refugees from the south started pouring into Clemenceau. He is now worried that the neighbourhood will be overrun whenever there is a flare-up, "and I don't want to put myself ever again in such a situation".
The conflict last summer put an obvious damper on real estate activity but prices in Beirut, which had risen sharply over the previous few years, have not fallen. Developers and agents say that some investors from the Gulf are now hesitant to buy but, in any case, they tend to favour the Solidere area and the seafront Corniche. Clemenceau is particularly popular with young Lebanese professionals and with the many Lebanese living abroad.
"Most of the inquiries that I get are from Lebanese expatriates who are looking for a pied-a-terre in Beirutor for an investment," says Osama Taha of the Iqarat.Lebanon real estate agency, which has its offices on Clemenceau Street.
One example is a Lebanese man working in the Gulf who asked him to find an apartment in the area for his two children, who are about to enrol at the nearby American University of Beirut (AUB). Taha found him a Dollars 300,000 apartment of about 190 sq metres.
The neighbourhood borders on or includes three universities - the AUB, the Lebanese University and the Armenian Haigazian University - a business school, the French Ecole Superieure des Affaires and three large hospitals - the American University Hospital, the Trad hospital and the gleaming, recently opened, glass, steel and stone Clemenceau Medical Centre (CMC), which is associated with the American Johns Hopkins hospital. In 2006, a year after the CMC opened its doors, prices of nearby properties had risen by 30 per cent, according to one study.
The presence of all these big institutions and Clemenceau's location on the axis between east and west mean that traffic has become increasingly congested. Even so, most of the area retains a remarkably residential feel and there is hardly any nightlife or shopping to speak of. "At night you only see rats in the streets," says Taha.
The neighbourhood is not very successful in retaining whatever entertainment is on offer. Two years ago the Medina Theatre left its premises for nearby Hamra Street because the landlord in Clemenceau raised the rent.
Bars and restaurants are the main form of entertainment in Beirut but Clemenceau must be one of the least endowed areas in that respect, which many residents count as a blessing. The Gemmayzeh neighbourhood on the other side of Solidere has exploded as a night spot over the past couple of years and life has become unbearable for many residents near its main street, through which traffic and revellers pulse deep into the night.
Clemenceau's few nocturnal attractions are in line with the area's restrained and somewhat eclectic outlook. Bardo is a bar with a Buddhist theme in an old Lebanese house, run by Mazen Khaled, the son of a Shia spiritual leader. The atmosphere is laid-back and Khaled says he attracts a clientele from all over town. He recently moved into the area himself and says that he loves its "cosmopolitan" feel.
Apart from the mix of residents, the appeal of Clemenceau also has to do with the stately old villas and houses that are left in part of the neighbourhood. Veteran Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has a home there and so have several other old Lebanese families. The gardens of the mansions make the area one of the few relatively green ones in town.
But some of the old houses are in danger of being torn down and many have already disappeared. Beirut's zoning regulations mean that profit margins for developers are large. The incentive to tear down old buildings is great, as their maintenance or renovation is costly and income from rent does not match the value of the land they sit on. In Lebanon, even buildings that are listed as protected are vulnerable to the profit motive.
And prices are booming, says Wissam Fayad of SV Properties & Construction in Clemenceau. He is over-seeing the construction of a 21-storey residential building in the area. The 460 sq metre luxury apartments were all sold for about Dollars 1m when the project started in 2004. Now, even before completion, they are being sold on for at least Dollars 1.5m.
Fortunately, there are some owners in Clemenceau who are not very likely to give up on their grand villas. Others might want to sell but because of generations of dividing up the properties between heirs, the multitude of owners do not agree on the right time or the right price to put their property on the market, says Taha. But the pressure to sell is huge as fewer plots are available and demand increases. And many of the young professionals who now rent the old houses fear that in 10 years' time Clemenceau might have lost its prewar, old Beirut feel.
By FERRY BIEDERMANN
NEXT NEIGHBOURHOOD CLEMENCEAU, BEIRUT, LEBANON: After years of postwar decay, this peaceful and relatively mixed part of town is booming again, says Ferry Biedermann
Saturday, Jul 07, 2007
Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war ripped the heart out of Beirut, the one-time "Paris of the -Middle East", both literally and figuratively. Not only was the city centre comprehensively destroyed but the cosmopolitan spirit of a place that had prided itself on the diversity of its people and the intermingling of cultures was badly damaged.
The once-upmarket area straddling Clemenceau Street in West Beirut was one of the city's most mixed neighbourhoods in the prewar era. Years of urban decay and paralysis followed the conflict but it is now booming again, partly because of nostalgia among some Lebanese for the big-city feel it once offered.
"This is the only part of Beirut that does not feel like a ghetto," says Dinna Debbas, a young photographer who started renting a beautiful old house with high ceilings and patterned tiled floors there three years ago. She likes the feeling of "anonymity" that she says the neighbourhood affords. But, above all, it is an area where Christians, Muslims and Druze, the country's three main groups, live side by side.
Clemenceau, comprising the smaller areas of Jounblat, Wardiyeh and Kantari, borders on the now partly restored city centre. While the old downtown district is being renovated meticulously, by the late prime minister Rafiq Hariri's Solidere development company, many Beirutis have not warmed to it because of its sometimes sterile feel and its exclusively high-end appeal.
Prices for new apartments in the city centre, also called Solidere after the company, vary between Dollars 3,000 and Dollars 7,000 per square metre and they are rising. Rents for shops and restaurants are so high that only the biggest or most exclusive brands can afford a downtown presence.
Many of the retail spaces stand empty and were so even before the opposition, led by the Shia Hizbollah movement, started an ongoing sit-in right in the centre of town to bring down the government. Political uncertainty keeps playing a role in Beirut's development as many businesses are relocating from the city centre to less volatile shopping districts elsewhere.
The Clemenceau area has all the advantages of a central location, between downtown and the main Hamra area of West Beirut, while offering a more authentic living experience to those who value that, says Raja Makarem, of Beirut's Ramco real estate consultancy.
And the prices are still not at the levels of Solidere. The average size of apartments is between 250 sq metres and 300 sq metres, which is on the small side by luxury Lebanese standards. Prices for new developments average between Dollars 1,800 and Dollars 2,700 per square metre.
Clemenceau was heavily damaged during the war because of its proximity to the front line. The pockmarked shell of the Holiday Inn hotel on its north-eastern corner is a reminder of "the war of the hotels", when militias used the high-rise buildings as firing positions. The most damaged blocks were torn down and Clemenceau still has a large concentration of empty plots that have now mostly been sold off to developers.
But it has taken the neighbourhood longer to become attractive than some other areas of Ras Beirut, the part of the capital that stretches from Solidere to the west. The main reason, says Makarem, was the presence of many civil war refugees who squatted in abandoned buildings. They were mainly Shia Muslims from the south who were occupying properties often belonging to Christian and sometimes Jewish families who had fled early on in the war. Only after the last of the refugees left about three years ago did Clemenceau really start to take off.
But the memory of the civil war and its forcible displacement of peoplestill sometimes impedes development. Beirut is a strongly segregated city17 years after the war ended. Christian East Beirut is overwhelmingly Christian while the Shia are concentrated in the southern neighbourhoods that bore the brunt of last summer's Israeli bombardments. Ras Beirut is more mixed, partly because of the presence of universities and other institutions, but many areas are heavily Sunni.
Marwan Naaman's family fled Clemenceau for a Christian area during the civil war. Prior to last summer's fighting between Hizbollah and Israel he had decided to move back to the neighbourhood. But the summer conflict made him change his mind because Shia refugees from the south started pouring into Clemenceau. He is now worried that the neighbourhood will be overrun whenever there is a flare-up, "and I don't want to put myself ever again in such a situation".
The conflict last summer put an obvious damper on real estate activity but prices in Beirut, which had risen sharply over the previous few years, have not fallen. Developers and agents say that some investors from the Gulf are now hesitant to buy but, in any case, they tend to favour the Solidere area and the seafront Corniche. Clemenceau is particularly popular with young Lebanese professionals and with the many Lebanese living abroad.
"Most of the inquiries that I get are from Lebanese expatriates who are looking for a pied-a-terre in Beirutor for an investment," says Osama Taha of the Iqarat.Lebanon real estate agency, which has its offices on Clemenceau Street.
One example is a Lebanese man working in the Gulf who asked him to find an apartment in the area for his two children, who are about to enrol at the nearby American University of Beirut (AUB). Taha found him a Dollars 300,000 apartment of about 190 sq metres.
The neighbourhood borders on or includes three universities - the AUB, the Lebanese University and the Armenian Haigazian University - a business school, the French Ecole Superieure des Affaires and three large hospitals - the American University Hospital, the Trad hospital and the gleaming, recently opened, glass, steel and stone Clemenceau Medical Centre (CMC), which is associated with the American Johns Hopkins hospital. In 2006, a year after the CMC opened its doors, prices of nearby properties had risen by 30 per cent, according to one study.
The presence of all these big institutions and Clemenceau's location on the axis between east and west mean that traffic has become increasingly congested. Even so, most of the area retains a remarkably residential feel and there is hardly any nightlife or shopping to speak of. "At night you only see rats in the streets," says Taha.
The neighbourhood is not very successful in retaining whatever entertainment is on offer. Two years ago the Medina Theatre left its premises for nearby Hamra Street because the landlord in Clemenceau raised the rent.
Bars and restaurants are the main form of entertainment in Beirut but Clemenceau must be one of the least endowed areas in that respect, which many residents count as a blessing. The Gemmayzeh neighbourhood on the other side of Solidere has exploded as a night spot over the past couple of years and life has become unbearable for many residents near its main street, through which traffic and revellers pulse deep into the night.
Clemenceau's few nocturnal attractions are in line with the area's restrained and somewhat eclectic outlook. Bardo is a bar with a Buddhist theme in an old Lebanese house, run by Mazen Khaled, the son of a Shia spiritual leader. The atmosphere is laid-back and Khaled says he attracts a clientele from all over town. He recently moved into the area himself and says that he loves its "cosmopolitan" feel.
Apart from the mix of residents, the appeal of Clemenceau also has to do with the stately old villas and houses that are left in part of the neighbourhood. Veteran Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has a home there and so have several other old Lebanese families. The gardens of the mansions make the area one of the few relatively green ones in town.
But some of the old houses are in danger of being torn down and many have already disappeared. Beirut's zoning regulations mean that profit margins for developers are large. The incentive to tear down old buildings is great, as their maintenance or renovation is costly and income from rent does not match the value of the land they sit on. In Lebanon, even buildings that are listed as protected are vulnerable to the profit motive.
And prices are booming, says Wissam Fayad of SV Properties & Construction in Clemenceau. He is over-seeing the construction of a 21-storey residential building in the area. The 460 sq metre luxury apartments were all sold for about Dollars 1m when the project started in 2004. Now, even before completion, they are being sold on for at least Dollars 1.5m.
Fortunately, there are some owners in Clemenceau who are not very likely to give up on their grand villas. Others might want to sell but because of generations of dividing up the properties between heirs, the multitude of owners do not agree on the right time or the right price to put their property on the market, says Taha. But the pressure to sell is huge as fewer plots are available and demand increases. And many of the young professionals who now rent the old houses fear that in 10 years' time Clemenceau might have lost its prewar, old Beirut feel.
By FERRY BIEDERMANN