Businessman David Azrieli, owner of Azrieli Towers and Shopping Malls Group, visited Acco last weekend and met with Mayor Shimon Lankri.

Azrieli toured the city as well as the compound that he recently purchased and where he will be building a new shopping mall.

This week the local Planning and Building Board approved the request for a building permit filed by the Azrieli Group for construction of the mall.

Apparently, interest on the part of the local business community in Acco is growing.  About two years ago Azrieli purchased from the Tambour factory an area of 13 dunams in the light industrial section of Acco, near the Strauss factory. 

Even then the Azrieli Group had announced its intentions to develop the area for business-economic needs, for the benefit of Acco's residents as part of the Group's development plans in the Northern Region in general.

The new shopping mall is planned to have two storeys and will house some 300 name brand stores.  Construction of the mall is expected to begin soon, and will take approximately a year and a half.

In a meeting this week Azrieli said he was impressed with the city's development and advancement, and that he sees tremendous potential here. 

"Building a mall here in Acco is, as far as I am concerned, the fulfillment of Zionism," said Azrieli, adding that even his daughter invests heavily in Acco, in the educational facet, through the Azrieli Institute for Educational and Social Empowerment.

The Azrieli Institute has been operating successfully in Acco in cooperation with the Rashi-SACTA Foundation in the city's lower secondary schools, and will continue its activities during the coming school year as well.

The Azrieli Institute works to prevent children from dropping out of school by empowering them scholastically and emotionally, helping them realize their potential and leading them towards independence.  The empowerment program is designed as a three-year program. 

During the first year the goal is to reduce scholastic gaps; in the second year the program works to maintain scholastic success; and in the third year emphasis is on the pupil's independence.

Acco's mayor, Shimon Lankri, said that construction of the new mall symbolizes an extension of the recent trend that has seen new entrepreneurs and investors in the city. 

According to Lankri this development will create many new jobs for the city's residents.  "I am certain that following the Azrieli Group's investment, additional commercial, real estate and other investors will also come," Lankri added.

In the past three years more than 30 new factories have been built in the city.