Built as part of a plan to revitalize Jaffa Road, it enjoyed a brief period of high occupancy until many tenants relocated to malls and office buildings in new suburbs in the 1990s.

The Clal Center is located in Jerusalem, Israel, at the southeastern corner of Jaffa Road and Kiah Street, one block east of the Mahane Yehuda Market.

[2] Enrolling mostly Sephardic Jewish students, the school offered courses in tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, blacksmithing, mechanics, engraving, sculpting (of stone, wood, and shell), coppersmithing, weaving, dyeing, stonecutting, and masonry.

[12] The city granted the planners "exceptional building rights" in the hope that the project would boost business and commercial activity on Jaffa Road.

[2] The Clal Center, completed in 1972,[1] reflects the 1970s trend in Israeli architecture that moved away from small-scale buildings toward projects that contained "everything under one roof".

[11][13] The exterior of the building reflects modern architecture with "straight lines, sequential windows, and a smooth, white stone facing".

[13] Because of the building's height, the Clal Center quickly became a popular venue for suicide jumpers who leaped from the upper-story windows.

[13] In the winter of 2011–2012, 25 homeless families that had been living in tent encampments in Independence Park and the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood were housed in empty offices in the Clal Center.

[11] Several attempts were made to bring a pedestrian presence to the street, such as the construction of the Windows residential tower next door, but to date nothing has been successful and the project has been deemed a commercial failure.

[2] On June 11, 2003, a suicide bomber dressed as a Haredi Jew detonated an explosive pack on an eastbound #14 bus in front of the Clal Center.

[24] In July 2013, a man entered a law office in the Clal Center and shot dead a father and daughter who worked as a legal team over an apparent business dispute.