A property firm has proposed the construction of a hotel on a host of fields adjacent to what is one of Malta’s busiest thoroughfares – Marsa’s Aldo Moro road.

The application, filed by David Camenzuli on behalf of the company J&M Property Limited, seeks to build a four-star hotel together with underground parking on the site, which is in Outside Development Zone land.

The site in question measures 3,665 square metres and is situated opposite the roundabout between Aldo Moro road and Triq Dicembru 13 and a few metres away from the Carlo Cini Petrol Station and the Marsa sports grounds.

The applicants have proposed the excavation of the site for the construction of one level of underground parking to build 82 parking spaces and the construction of a four-star hotel with 157 rooms, a gym, an outdoor and indoor pool, a spa area, and a conference area.

The developers are also seeking permission to construct a restaurant and a cafeteria at ground floor level.

The development will rise five storeys, with the top one being a receded level, for a total height of 17.3 metres. 

The application is still in the early phases of the planning process, having only been filed towards the end of October: however it has already been noted that the applicant did not submit an application with the proposal to the Malta Tourism Authority, which must award a Tourism Compliance Certificate before a development permit can be approved.

The local plan for this area does not foresee any development on this particular site, and changes to it to create the Marsa Park Development Area and Business Hub had also excluded the site from being considered for a hotel.

Those local plan changes however paved the way for a number of other applications which were filed in the past few years.

Entrepreneur Angelo Xuereb had proposed the construction of a huge 37-storey tower on the opposite side of Triq Dicembru 13, which had prompted warnings that the development would have a major visual impact on localities around the Grand Harbour area.

The application was withdrawn in May 2020 after a dispute arose over the ownership of the site.

Another tower was proposed close by, next to the old matchbox factory, in 2017.  Rising to 16 storeys, the planned high-rise block would have dominated the skyline, but the developer Neville Agius downsized plans last year so that the current proposal will see only a six-storey block constructed.

The footprint of the newly proposed development was doubled to make up for the removal of 10 storeys, meaning that a planned landscaped area set out as an open space was removed entirely from the plans. That application is currently suspended at the architect’s request.

Corinthia Group meanwhile is proposing another six-storey office block with a more contemporary looking design instead of the old matchbox factory itself.

This was filed in 2020, though the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage had called for the preservation of the façade of the factory, which dates back to 1950 and which is deemed to have a degree of architectural and historical value.

The Corinthia application is still at screening stage, and no new documents have been submitted for it since September 2022.

Another application in the same area which is suspended is one for the construction of four levels of underground parking, a showroom at ground-floor level and five floors of offices in an area known as Tas-Salib in Marsa – which is inside Marsa, across the road from the matchbox factory.

Up the road from the development proposed for the matchbox factory and the would-have-been Angelo Xuereb tower is an application by Nicholas Bianchi for the demolition of structures on sites situated on either side of Triq it-Tigrija and replacing them with underground parking, a vehicle showroom and two six-floor blocks of offices.

That application is currently awaiting recommendation, and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage has requested that the design be amended to mitigate any negative visual impact on “the legible streetscape composed traditional buildings having cultural heritage and architectural value, intrinsically and collectively, together with their context.”

An objector has also claimed in a representation that she is the owner of the site on which the development is being proposed and said that she had neither been informed nor given any permission for the proposed development.