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IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

West Bank mall opens despite violence, roadblocks, curfews

BY DEBRA HAZEL

It opened three years late, with no internationally known tenants. But it’s something of a miracle that Plaza Shopping Center, the West Bank’s first enclosed mall built at the height of the Intifada, opened at all.

The 108,000-square-foot center opened Oct. 1 in Al-Bireh, a suburb of Ramallah, 10 miles north of Jerusalem.

Bravo is the largest and most modern supermarket in the West Bank, according to the developers of Plaza Shopping Center.

Building what would be considered in the United States a modest shopping center should have been fairly straightforward. But nothing here is easy, and what should have been a one-year development project turned into a multiyear process, dragged out by political and economic strife.

“It’s been the greatest challenge of my life,” said Sam S. Bahour, the center’s general manager and creator, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent whose father owned supermarkets in Youngstown, Ohio.

The long-standing political disputes between Israel and the Palestinian people have kept developers and retailers away from the West Bank, he says, despite a market desperate for modern retail.

“This was an emerging market, with nothing being done [to develop it],” said Bahour.

But the Oslo peace accord of the 1990s between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization inspired in Bahour and a group of backers the hope that commercial development could yet take place in the disputed territories.

Initially, they conceived of a chain of supermarkets but finally settled on building a supermarket-anchored, two-level shopping center.

“We announced it on April 1, 1999,” Bahour said. “That’s April Fools’ Day. That’s not a joke.”

His development company, West Bank-based Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers Co., was created in May 1999, funded initially by a group of wealthy Palestinian and foreign Arab businessmen. Work began on the center later that year.

But problems soon arose. The company went public on the Palestine Securities Exchange on Sept. 28, 2000, the day Ariel Sharon, now Israel’s prime minister, visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, site of the Al-Aqsa mosque, a place revered by both Jews and Arabs.

The event sparked the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and every potential international tenant then talking to Bahour backed away.

Bahour is sympathetic of their reaction, however much it set him back. “It takes a lot of risk to put your money and your life on the line,” he said.

Plaza Shopping Center is the West Bank’s first enclosed mall.

Construction on the center continued nevertheless, though at a very West Bank pace; it was interrupted by curfews, roadblocks, violence and travel restrictions that inhibited access to the site for both laborers and materials.

On one occasion, the supermarket was used as a holding facility for Palestinian fugitives while the Israeli army conducted a search of the area. “I inhaled a lot of tear gas,” Bahour recalled.

But he had one thing to be grateful for, at least: Despite the damage wreaked on neighboring Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat has his headquarters, the Plaza’s buildings were not damaged at any point.

The two-level mall as it looks today probably would not turn heads in the United States, but it is revolutionary for the West Bank. The $10.2 million project is anchored by Bravo, at 21,500 square feet the largest and most modern supermarket in the West Bank, and a 6,634-square-foot indoor children’s play area. The center includes a four-tenant food court, two restaurants, an open café and some 40 local retailers offering cosmetics, clothing and gifts that weren’t available in the West Bank before.

And now, finally, an international tenant is on the way. A United Colors of Benetton was due to open a store at the center as SCT went to press. Bahour says he hopes it will be the first of many foreign retailers.

“We hope to get internationally acclaimed tenants,” Bahour said. The center opened with 30 percent of its space vacant, so there is room for more tenants. “But foreign tenants will only come when there is economic and political stability.”

Though he has little control over the economic and political situation outside the center, he can at least succor the spirit of peace inside Plaza Shopping Center. Tenants are not allowed to sell toy guns and no violent video games are permitted in the play area. The play area’s decorations are of colorful fish and other wonders of the natural world, but none of the “action figures” that might be used to entertain children elsewhere in the world.

The center has a 28-person security staff, but there are no armed guards at the doors. Merchants accept Israeli shekels, Jordanian dinars and U.S. dollars. Israelis are welcome at the center, though few have come, Bahour says; it is not an area in which unescorted Israelis would be safe at present.

Bahour might have had to wait for Western retailers, but he has wasted no time in implementing some Western marketing innovations. He sold the naming rights for the play area to Jawwal, the Palestinian Cellular Communications Co., the first such sponsorship agreement in the West Bank.

There’s also a Plaza-based taxi service to takes shoppers to and from the center; it delivers merchandise to people’s homes and workplaces, too.

The “center has added something different to the area,” said Nisreen Khalaf, the co-owner of Nahfat, a teen-oriented gift and gadget store in the mall that is comparable to Spencer Gifts in the United States. “Before, I had to walk in the rain or the sun. We didn’t have an enclosed center.”

Khalaf and business partner Khalid Nabris are first-time retailers who had been consultants in community development. They researched stores and product sources before opening, visiting stores both in Israel and on the West Bank to get a feel for the business. It helps that Khalaf carries a U.S. passport and Nabris a Jerusalem identity card, which allows them to travel more freely than most in the West Bank.

What has made Nahfat profitable thus far is its unique mix, Khalaf says; there are few places to buy gifts for teen-agers, and the store was the only place to buy costumes for a local carnival that was held early in the year. Now Khalaf and Nabris are in talks to expand their presence at the mall by opening a kiosk in addition to their in-line store.

No toy guns or violent videos allowed inside; there’s enough real violence outside.

Such talk is encouraging, but the Plaza continues to face obstacles. At press time, about half the customer base was unable to reach the mall because of Israeli army roadblocks. Still, Bahour notes wryly, those same roadblocks also prevent residents living around the mall from getting out, making them a captive audience with not much else to do.

“Basically, we’re in survival mode, trying to do the best we can,” he said.

A sense of humor helps. Recalling a snowfall shortly before Valentine’s Day and, on another occasion, a minor earthquake, Khalaf said, “If it’s not the occupation, it’s God.”

Despite the problems, shoppers have come, Bahour says. Because the tenants are on base rent only, he cannot report sales per square foot, but the mall is doing well. Rents are high, compared to the traditional open-air markets, he says. Retail tenants pay $300 per square meter annually; food tenants pay $1,300 per square meter.

Bahour lives near the mall on a tourist visa and must periodically leave and reenter the country to work. But he isn’t talking about going home to the United States, at least not for now. When the time is right, he wants to expand Plaza and perhaps open other centers in the region.

“I want to be a part of the solution,” he said. “This is how I can contribute.”

 

 

 

 

 

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