Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1517228
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 MARCH 2024 NEWS JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt New buildings to take up over Footprint of new buildings will be size of nearly three football pitches, with three clusters of residential apartments NEW buildings over a 20,400sq.m footprint on Manoel Island are set to be approved by the Planning Authority, roughly covering an area the size of three football pitches. It means MIDI's new build- ings will now take up 7.3% of the islet, up from 6% or 16,553sq.m in the former plans of three years ago. The PA originally issued an outline permit for the entire MIDI project in Tigné and Manoel island back in 1999 which foresaw development on an even larger scale. A down- scaled masterplan was finally approved in 2021 but the pro- ject layout has changed yet again following archaeological discoveries, mainly related to old cemeteries. While the latest plans have excluded development on ar- cheologically sensitive areas, they still foresee a considerable 10,125sq.m increase in gross floor area of apartments when compared to the masterplan. The increase in residen- tial space is being achieved without increasing approved heights, but by reducing shops and restaurants' floor area to 4,600sq.m. And while public spaces too will be reduced by 5,000sq.m, private open spaces will be in- creased in a newly created gat- ed community by 12,500sq.m, with the integration of the cir- culation area within the build- ing fabric. A new village in the making? A grand total of 323 apart- ments, up from the 300 ap- proved in 2021, are being pro- posed in three separate large blocks which will dominate views of Manoel Island from Ta' Xbiex and the Gżira Strand, but which are now contained in part of the island. The project will retain 172,362sq.m of open spac- es, or 62% of the whole islet. This will include 48,293sq.m of public squares and streets, 9,388sq.m of shoreline, a 12,658sq.m waterfront prom- enade, 10,678sq.m of sports facilities, a 78,481sq.m glacis park around Fort Manoel and a 10,279sq.m garden. The largest cluster, consisting of 227 apartments and rising to a height of 25m, will be locat- ed off the bridge entry point. This cluster has been set back further from the coast and will be divided in four condensed blocks – instead of previous- ly seven fragmented smaller blocks. This cluster will also include eight catering estab- lishments. The adjacent Manoel Hos- pital building (ex-Customs House) will be restored and turned into a restaurant, while St George's Chapel will be con- verted into a lapidarium for the storage and display of architec- tural remains recovered during the archaeological evaluation of the site. A second residential cluster further inland will rise to 26m with 82 residential units. The nearby remnants of the origi- nal old plague hospital will be turned into a catering estab- lishment. A third cluster of 14 resi- dential units will be next to the Manoel Destroyer Depot, and will include an underlying multilevel car park, and a club- Photomontages showing aerial views of the project