Plans have been filed to demolish the existing White Dolphin Hotel complex in Qawra and replace it with a 10-storey, 144-room budget hotel.

Situated on Triq Dawret il-Qawra a stone's throw away from the coast, the White Dolphin is a complex of budget self-catered apartments with a restaurant and pool area included at ground floor level.

The plans, which have been filed by Louis Gauci who listed himself as an owner of the site, envision the total demolition of the current site and its replacement with a new hotel with three underground levels and 10 over-ground levels, the topmost being a receded floor.

This would see the site rise higher than was previously approved. In 2017, a planning application was approved that permitted the site to rise to 7 levels.

The applicant is proposing a three-star hotel which will contain 144 rooms with a total of 288 beds.  Although not formally written down, plans filed with the Planning Authority indicate that the hotel will be part of French megabrand ibis Hotels.

The ibis logo is in fact presented on one of the hotel's walls in elevations presented in the planning application.  Ibis is a global franchise and has over 2,000 hotels worldwide under its name.  There is already an ibis Styles hotel in St Paul's Bay, a stone's throw away from the Bugibba Square.

The currently existing White Dolphin Hotel is something of a holiday complex more than a hotel.  It is made up of 45 self-catered apartments with a communal pool at ground level and a bar and restaurant open in peak seasons.

The new project will include 49 parking spaces split across three newly excavated basement levels, together with amenities such as a restaurant, an indoor pool with a spa, a gym, a coffee shop, a rooftop bar and a 95 square metre outdoor infinity pool at roof level.

The Malta Tourism Authority said in planning consultations that it has no objection to the application, and the Environment & Resources Authority, similarly, said it has no problems with the plans either.

More planning consultations must take place with varying entities, before a Planning Authority case officer will issue a recommendation on whether the project should be granted approval or not.