State pays Da Vinci penthouse residents NIS 70,000 monthly

Five months after the Iranian missile hit the Da Vinci Towers on the corner of Kaplan and Da Vinci streets in Tel Aviv, the scale of the physical and economic damage is starting to become clear.

The Tel Viv Municipality has removed the dangerous structure order from the southern tower, and residents can now return to live there. The northern tower, however, which sustained a direct hit, will undergo extensive rehabilitation work, and the residents will have to wait at least another two years before they can return. Until then, they will continue to live in alternative accommodation financed by the state. “Globes” checked and found that the aggregate cost is NIS 5-6 million annually.

Some of the apartments in the Da Vinci Towers are large luxury homes, and the rent for alternative apartments is accordingly high. The Israel Tax Authority confirmed to “Globes” that for most of the apartments in the buildings, the state finances “monthly rent of approximately NIS 14,000 per apartment” but “in the case of penthouses and the luxury apartments the cost rises to NIS 50,000 and even NIS 70,000 a month.” The monthly cost of alternative accommodation for residents of the Da Vinci buildings therefore amounts to nearly NIS 500,000.

Some of the apartments in the towers were rented and their owners did not live in them. Under a decision by the Ministry of Finance, if an apartment cannot be used as a result of a hit by a missile in the course of the war with Iran, following the filing of relevant documents and if the criteria are met, the apartment owners receive the rent from the state, either via a direct request from the Tax Authority or via the tenant who chooses to keep the lease and move to alternative accommodation, in which case he is entitled to receive from the state the rent for the apartment in which he cannot live.

Information on prices of apartments in the towers can be gleaned from transactions reported on the Israel Tax Authority website. A year ago, for example, a 173 square-meter apartment on the 39th floor with two parking spots was sold for NIS 16.7 million. A 90 square-meter four-room apartment with one parking spot was sold at the end of last year for NIS 5.75 million.

Besides the apartments sold on the free market, 40 apartments (20 in each tower) were earmarked for the rental market at a discount of 20% on the market price. After the Israel Land Authority and the municipality realized that the price would not be “affordable”, it was decided to sell the apartments, but it was difficult to find a buyer because of the requirement that they should be permanently rented.

Following the damage caused by the missile hit, the Israel Land Authority decided last month to cut nearly 60% from the minimum price in the tender, so that the total price of the forty apartments fell to NIS 43 million before VAT, after a tender published last year set a minimum price of NIS 101 million.

Israel David, acting chairperson of the Israel Association for Construction and Infrastructure Engineers, and the engineer responsible for planning the rehabilitation of the buildings, explained in the past to “Globes” that in the northern tower “it’s a matter of damage to the skeleton, to the water systems, electricity, communications, sprinklers and elevators,” and estimated that repairs would cost tens of millions of shekels.

On top of that there is a dispute between the residents and the Tel Aviv Municipality over the need for the issue of a building permit to rehabilitate the northern tower. The residents argue that this represents an unnecessary delay, while the municipality stresses that a building permit is a legal requirement for any significant engineering work.

Work has also not yet started on the Elite Tower in Ramat Gan which was hit by an Iranian missile in June. The residents are in alternative accommodation costing an estimated NIS 2.5 million annually.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 7, 2025.

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