Manger Square Beautification

The late Mr. Said Khoury, Co-founder of CCC and founder of BDF has pledged to reha­bil­i­tate and beau­ti­fy Manger Square. Objec­tives and Ratio­nale Manger Square is the icon­ic cen­ter of Beth­le­hem, and the hub of var­i­ous reli­gious activ­i­ties and fes­ti­vals cel­e­brat­ing the birth of Jesus Christ. As well as nation­al and social cel­e­bra­tions. Plan­ning and \beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of Manger Square aims at reclaim­ing the func­tion­al­i­ty of the square as an open space and its sta­tus as an urban land­mark free of vehic­u­lar traf­fic. It will help in pro­long­ing tourist stay in Beth­le­hem, job cre­ation and the over­all qual­i­ty of life. Project Phase‑1 KNT Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny exe­cut­ed works at the three munic­i­pal build­ings sur­round­ing Manger Square. At the old munic­i­pal­i­ty build­ing the roof water dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem was rearranged for opti­mal use and min­i­mal load. The six­ty year old water­proof­ing was replaced, the front facade win­dows were enlarged while all oth­er win­dows were replaced and all the out­side stone facades were cleaned and repoint­ed. At the new munic­i­pal­i­ty build­ing all facades were cleaned by water jet­ting and sand blast­ing and the roof was cleaned up. Sim­i­lar­ly, the Peace Cen­ter facades were cleaned by water jet­ting and sand plas­ter­ing. The roof was cleaned and the main façade doors and win­dows repaired and repaint­ed. Project Phase‑2 Works were exe­cut­ed by Al-Maher Gen­er­al Con­tract­ing Com­pa­ny and includ­ed: The Square Improvements:

The Square improve­ments includ­ed var­i­ous land­scap­ing inter­ven­tions includ­ing patch­ing of dam­aged tiles, clean­ing of stone ele­ments, adding new sig­nage to shops and installing two dig­i­tal screens. The main entrance to the Munic­i­pal­i­ty was changed by replac­ing the exist­ing short wall with a planter, adding flag poles, fix­ing street tiling and drainage and stream­lin­ing traf­fic with fixed bol­lards and move­able planters and cre­at­ing a new park­ing for the May­or away from the entrance Afteem’s Road is an essen­tial exit of the square, the sur­face was tiled and the road had no drainage sys­tem, our inter­ven­tion includ­ed asphalt with a rough tex­ture to avoid a slip­pery sur­face, adding a drainage sys­tem to the road, and adding a new stair case for pedestrians.