View of the Hilton Habtoor Hotel, renamed Al Habtoor Grand, in Beirut. (Credit: Photo taken from the group's website)
Emirati businessman Khalaf Al Habtoor, director of the Al Habtoor Group conglomerate, revealed this weekend an ambitious yet bold project for his iconic hotel in Lebanon, the Metropolitan Beirut: Dismantling the building to transfer it to an undisclosed location. This building, located in Sin al-Fil, is located across from the former Hilton Hotel tower, now renamed Al Habtoor Grand, which also belongs to him.
In a video posted on his X account, Habtoor, known for his often controversial statements about Lebanon, documents his meeting with a team of engineers from his group, representatives of a consulting firm, and the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), a Chinese state-owned company, regarding this project. The idea is to cut the building into "slices," transportable sections, to transfer it to "a neighboring site," according to one of the engineers featured in the video. The presumed employee of the Chinese company, which has already tested this method, emphasized that each section will be "reinforced vertically and horizontally to ensure the stability of the structure before determining the optimal route for the transfer."
Land or sea transport?
For transport, two options are under consideration: sea transport (the more likely), from a port and aboard a ship, and land transit, judged more complex due to winding roads and mountainous terrain. In the destination country, only the foundations of the building will need to be dug, and the rest of the structure "with the furniture and air conditioning" will be ready. A "technically applicable" plan, according to those present. In the publication accompanying the video, Habtoor expressed himself as "fully satisfied" with the study’s conclusions, labeling the results as "complete and promising," and showed his enthusiasm about realizing this complex project "in the near future."
The businessman announced in late January the total suspension of his investments in Lebanon, just days after expressing his intention to relaunch his projects in the country "as soon as the future government was formed." He then mentioned the "lack of security and economic prospects," two months after the cease-fire that ended more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Abandoned shopping mall and amusement park
The Emirati, who has not personally visited Lebanon for 20 years, according to Reuters, announced in 2024 his intention to open a television channel in the Lebanese capital before retracting this commitment. Among his other properties in the country: a shopping mall, adjacent to the two hotels in Sin al-Fil, abandoned since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2019, and an amusement park in Jamhour, also closed for years.
Khalaf Al Habtoor, known for his verbal outbursts against Hezbollah, has made numerous statements since the election of President Joseph Aoun, lamenting, among other things, the hold of the party over the country's governance. A few days before the funeral of former Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, assassinated in an Israeli raid on southern Beirut, the Emirati billionaire warned in February of "the end of Lebanon" in case of official representation.
A month earlier, in an interview with Reuters, he also noted that Lebanon was still not safe and that he had been threatened to be "massacred and killed" in 2024. The threat, made on social media by an anonymous person, led him to file a complaint, which he won in a Lebanese court. When asked if he was considering investing again in Lebanon, the businessman replied that if the country could ensure security and protection, he "would undoubtedly return."
