At least one of the major construction projects in Malta is still alive and kicking and will hopefully begin construction in the next few months.

That should make Metropolis an exception seeing that other major projects, notably the Mistra Village one, have yet to begin.

Metropolis is only a huge hole in the ground, bounded by four roads next to the former Empire Stadium in Gzira. That part of the full development permit, at least, has been carried out.

Then there was a change of ownership and the new owner wanted more commercial space and more parking. The second demand has already been approved by a separate permit for the digging of more ground, underneath roughly half Testaferrata Street in Ta’ Xbiex.

The first change was approved by the Mepa board this afternoon.

In essence, the configuration of the three towers of the planned building has been changed in that the middle one has been changed from a residential unit to a commercial one, with offices, restaurants both at ground level and at roof level, a club with swimming pool, and ancillary office services.

One other major change has vastly increased the public open spaces. Seen from on top, the centre of the site now resembles a square spiral with public walkways ascending to a very high level.

Car spaces have been increased from the original 499 to 615 and now to 733, with a vast over-provisioning.

The public open spaces have been increased from 2210 sq m to 4265, not counting the open spaces that will be exclusive to the office block employees.

The proposed height of the two towers has been retained as approved.

Retail space, originally one supermarket at one level and a showroom has now been increased fr5om 2,000 sq m to 4275 plus a further 970 sq m for catering establishments. The retail section will consist of the ‘shop-in-shop’ type, like at Arcadia in Gozo and it will now be linked to the supermarket as well.

The residential units have been decreased from 188 units to 110.

While one restaurant will be on top of one of the towers, a helipad is planned for the top of the other one. Following discussions with the Civil Aviation authorities, the permit has been given, provided conditions are kept. The discussions were not easy, since there are no other helipads on private buildings in Malta.

Each use – retail, office block, residential blocks, etc - will have its specific entrance lobby at ground level.

Analysing the application, the Directorate said that it is true the local plan has capping limitations on retail applications but this is considered to be valid only for on-street applications, not for such a site which uses the FAR calculation to rise to 16 levels and the Directorate agreed with this consideration.

One issue regarding this application regarded traffic. Transport Malta had three options to choose from, two of which were dependent on the Link Road that the government promised in 1990 to link the Kappara Roundabout to the Gzira Seafront and hence to facilitate access to Manoel Island.

Transport Malta discarded these two options because they would be dependent on an application unrelated to this Metropolis one.

So TM and the applicant agreed on the third option, which will see an improvement in the road junction between Testaferrata Street and Enrico Mizzi Street.

The applicant has been asked to pay a bank guarantee of €250,000, a €25,000 contribution to a study on air quality at national level, and a financial contribution of €190,000.

There was no comment by the members of the public when asked for by the Mepa chairman. The chairman then asked when would the construction start and Prof. Edwin Mintoff, for the applicant, said the tenders are ready to be issued and will be issued once the permit is approved. Construction will begin in the coming months, maybe this year.

The applicants insisted throughout the hearing that this is a high-grade project which will improve the quality of the area and hopefully attract more investment to the area.