Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1159832
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 25 AUGUST 2019 NEWS COURT NOTICE The Registrar of Civil Courts and Tribunals informs that the Civil Court, First Hall ordered the following sales by auction: Date Time Judicial Sale No Place Items 25 th September, 2019 12.00pm 32/11 – JGL Cutajar Brian (ID227379M) noe vs Cutajar Salvatore sive Salvu (ID375142M) Room number 78 nearby the Archives, level -1, Courts of Justice, Republic Street, Valletta 100 ordinary shares within the company S.C. & Company Limited C- 6050 Further details can be obtained from the website: https://ecourts.gov.mt/onlineservices/JudicialSales The bidders taking part in the auction must present their identity card Gaetana Aquilina For the Registrar Civil Courts and Tribunals Owners still want hotel Owner Kevin Fenech has reiterated plans for a luxury 40-room hotel, in court in a case instituted in 2008 by the Lands Department, and re- vealed that prior to 2013 Plan- ning Authority officials had "made it clear they were not ready to consider a hotel be- cause they wanted to reduce human activity in the area." But after 2013, Fenech con- tracted architects AP to pre- sent new plans for a luxury ho- tel aimed at tourists not being catered for by other providers. The hotel was to be located on the part of the land in Ghajn Tuffieha which includes both public land as well as land sole- ly owned by Fenech. So Fenech started negotia- tions with the government to exchange that part of the land, a Natura 2000 site, with "dis- turbed" public land which he promised to embellish through landscaping. "We started to discuss with the authorities and it seemed that there was some will on the part of the authorities for the project to take place," Fenech said, claiming both the PA and the ERA had no objections ex- cept for insisting he keeps the same footprint of the derelict hotel. But according to Fenech ne- gotiations with the Lands De- partment had to stop after a new Lands Authority was ap- pointed. "We than started talk- ing with Carlo Mifsud. As soon as we were getting somewhere Mifsud was replaced by Debo- rah Schembri. We spoke to her, and started moving on… but then things changed again and James Piscopo was appointed [as CEO]," he said. Fenech expressed frustration, saying he had found closed doors "sometimes because of an ant, a bird or because of light pollution… because of everything." JAMES DEBONO A second 23-storey tower proposed next to the already- approved 32 storey on the Mercury House site is set to include 99 new residential units, a 240-room hotel, al- most 3,000sq.m of retail space and 4,600sq.m of offices. According to a project de- scription statement submit- ted by developer Joseph Por- telli, the height of the original Zaha Hadid designed tower is to increase by eight metres, reaching an overall height of 122m above street level. That will also mean the total number of apartments on the site will increase from 275 to 374. The study concludes that the project will create an average of 998 new car trips everyday. The new tower will require over 30,000sq.m of concrete and 4,500 tonnes of steel. The "second phase" of the Mercury Towers project is set to be built on the current GO exchange building along Triq Sant' Andrija. The approved 31-storey tower will be con- nected to this second phase by a five-storey podium. The project also envisages an extension of the central public piazza across the site, creating a continuous public space. The piazza will include an event area where outdoor markets or cultural events can take place. The site around Mercury House, a Grade 2 scheduled building, was earmarked for development since a develop- ment brief approved in 2005, which originally limited the building height to 15 storeys and stipulated that the devel- opment on this site should be mainly limited to offices and shops with 'apartments and penthouses' limited to the "top floors". It was on the basis of this brief that Pender Ville Lim- ited won the 2005 concession for the Pender and Mercury sites for Lm10.6 million (€24 million), seeing off the own- ers of the St George's Park site as their main rivals for the concession. An applica- tion approved by the PA in 2012 extended this to two ad- jacent office towers of 19 and 18 floors. This part of the site was later sold to Joseph Por- telli. The first phase of the project was approved in Janu- ary 2018. Second Mercury House tower: hotel and apartments to generate 1,000 car trips St Julian's high-rise 'traffic future' The Zaha Hadid designed Mercury House high-rise: two towers will rise to 32 and 23 storeys