Work on four star, 81-room hotel which will replace the Embassy shopping complex in Valletta will be completed within a year with works starting in the coming three weeks, the developers said on Monday.

The building will retain its current height and house a rooftop restaurant, pool and internal courtyard.  Its entrance will be on Strait Street, whilst the only changes to its facade will be in an increase in the number of windows.  The entrance for the commercial part of the complex will remain, as it is today, on St. Lucy Street.

The ground floor will include the hotel’s reception and a commercial area. The first floor will see eight hotel rooms, a multi-purpose hall and a bar area, in addition to, according to the plans, a central courtyard. Levels two to six will see guest rooms installed, and level seven will see an indoor heated pool constructed, and will house the breakfast and bar area, which will include outdoor seating. In total there will be 81 rooms.

The Embassy’s cinema complex will also be given a new lease of life, with the cinema’s official social media portal announcing that as of 7 January 2019 the cinemas would be closed, but would be re-built and re-opened on one of the new complex’s lower levels later on in the year.

The developers had originally sought to add two extra floors to the building, which is already one of the highest buildings overlooking Marsamxett Harbour, but this was turned down by the Planning Authority.

The application was approved in February earlier this year by the Planning Authority.  It will not include any additional parking facilities, as the case officer had ruled in his report that no further contribution for a parking provision is needed as a hotel requires fewer parking spaces than the current commercial building.