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HOUSE AND HOME: New interest in old-city charm
By Ferry Biedermann, Financial Times
Published: 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 Solid?Ã?¨re
after the company, vary between $3,000 and $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 Solid?Ã?¨re. 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 $1,800 and $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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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-?Ã? -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
$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 ?Ã?cole Sup?Ã?©rieure 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 $1m when the project started in
2004. Now, even before completion, they are being sold on for at least
$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, Financial Times
Published: 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 Solid?Ã?¨re
after the company, vary between $3,000 and $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 Solid?Ã?¨re. 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 $1,800 and $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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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-?Ã? -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
$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 ?Ã?cole Sup?Ã?©rieure 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 Solid?Ã?¨re 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 $1m when the project started in
2004. Now, even before completion, they are being sold on for at least
$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.