The Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology and the Arts (Seminar Hakibbutzim) project, one of the most complex projects in Tel Aviv, is finally moving ahead after more than 20 years in which it has been bogged down in bureaucracy and legal disputes between the partners in the project.
Bank Hapoalim (TASE: POLI) and Israel Discount Bank (TASE: DSCT) reported this morning that they have signed a financing support deal with the Kibbutzim College and the developer Phoeniclass (owned by Phoenix, which has a 67% stake in America Israel) for a real estate project on the campus. Bank financing in the first phase will be about NIS 1.7 billion.
The Kibbutzim College campus covers 52.5 dunams (13.125 acres) just north of the Yarkon River near the junction of Rokach Boulevard and Derekh Namir. The land was purchased by the College in 1957 from the then Government Development Authority. The agreement that was signed includes the construction of a new campus for education, technology and the arts, in the eastern part of the College. 450 housing units will also be built on the western part of the campus as well as public areas and commercial space. The first phase of construction will take about five years, during which time a new college building and 134 housing units will be built.
Decades of disputes between the project partners
The project has faced a series of challenges and disputes over more than 20 years. Back in 2000, when the College agreed a deal in which Phoeniclass, would demolish and build a new college building with public areas that would be handed over to the Tel Aviv Municipality for commercial purposes and the establishment of public institutions, as well as three residential towers with some 500 apartments.
According to estimates at the time, the value of the land was NIS 1 billion, and under the agreement, the College would receive payment in several stages. The College claimed that the second advance payment of NIS 56 million was not paid “for various reasons,” and the project collapsed.
The long delay in implementing the deal resulted in further legal disputes between the developers and other parties, bureaucratic complexities, despite approval of the master plan in 2012.
Another dispute was between the Kibbutzim College and Bank Hapoalim, dating back more than 30 years to the kibbutzim debt settlement, in which NIS 20 billion of kibbutz debt was wiped out. As part of the debt settlement, the Kibbutzim movements pledged to transfer to Bank Hapoalim a substantial portion of the proceeds that would be received in the future from the sale of the college’s land. The Kibbutzim movements were behind the establishment of the college and controlled its decision-making until 2016. Since the college is an association and does not involve ordinary shareholders, as in a business company, this led to a complication, with the association claiming that it had nothing to do with the debt to Bank Hapoalim.
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Yet another dispute concerned a lawsuit filed in February 2017 by the developers (Phoenix and America Israel) against the Kibbutz College Association, demanding that the association buy from the Tel Aviv Municipality an area of 1,090 square meters in the complex that it owns. According to the College, the plot of land was part of the complex that the Association bought in 1957, but it turned out that it was registered in the Land Registry Office in the name of the Tel Aviv Municipality.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 29, 2025.
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