Luxurious W Hotel to Open in 19th-century Jaffa Building

New York-based real estate investment firm RFR Holding and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide will open a luxury boutique hotel under the W brand in Israel in 2015. RFR is investing more than $50 million in the project to convert a 19th century building that once housed the French Hospital in the ancient port neighborhood of Jaffa into a 125-room hotel overlooking the Mediterranean. Starwood will manage the hotel.

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The project will also include 38 W-branded residences in a newly constructed wing adjacent to the heritage building in which the hotel is housed. The apartments will be priced between NIS 6.4 million ($1.7 million) and NIS 58 million.

The W Tel Aviv-Jaffa project is RFR's investment in Israel. "We have plans for more hotels in Tel Aviv," Aby Rosen, co-founder and principal of RFR Holding, told a news conference. He said they will all be boutique hotels of 100-150 rooms. RFR has over 100 properties in the United States and Germany, including Manhattan's Seagram Building and the W South Beach Hotel & Residences in Miami.

W Hotels has 43 hotels and retreats and expects to reach 60 by the end of 2015, said Anthony Ingham, vice president of Starwood's luxury and design brands in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.