Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546398
12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 2 SEPTEMBER 2026 NEWS JAMES DEBONO jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt 10-storey-hotel planned instead of petrol station in Ta Xbiex A four-star hotel could replace the Sterling service station at the corner of Triq Testaferrata and Triq Giorgio Mitrovich in Ta' Xbiex, adding to a grow- ing number of proposed tour- ist accommodation projects transforming the Gżira-Ta' Xbiex-Msida area. Planning application PA/06058/26 proposes the demolition of the existing ser- vice station structures, excava- tion of three basement levels for parking and construction of a showroom at ground- floor level, with an addition nine floors for a four-star hotel above. The hotel development is be- ing proposed in the immediate vicinity to the 17-storey high ST tower. The proposal follows a 2023 permit for the same site which envisaged a temporary transition from the existing petrol station. Under PA/05142/22, the Planning Authority approved the demolition of the station buildings and car wash while retaining the fuel pumps and canopy, together with an open- air private car park and a small fuel attendant's office. The case officer report not- ed that the applicant intended the car park to serve nearby offices "until the whole site is redeveloped", with the petrol station expected to be decom- missioned "in around 8 years' time". The previous application was assessed under the North Har- bour Local Plan, SPED, DC15 and the 2020 Fuel Station Pol- icy. The latter imposed a sev- en-metre height limitation on the development approved at the time. The new proposal comes as hotel development accelerates across the wider area. The Planning Authority this week approved a 76-room ho- tel on the site occupied by Villino Micallef, an early- to mid-20th-century Art Nou- veau townhouse. Several larger hotel projects remain pending. These include an 11-storey, 244-room ho- tel proposed by Kenneth Borg Caruana on the site of a petrol station along Triq l-Imsida. Hotels also form part of plans for two major high-rise devel- opments. Mizzi Estate Ltd has applied for a 31-storey tower comprising offices, hotel and residential units on the site around the scheduled Muscat Motors showroom. Meanwhile, a revised proposal for the long-stalled Metropolis project would replace the pre- viously approved three-tower scheme with a single 34-storey structure, incorporating hotel accommodation on its lower floors alongside residential and commercial uses. The Metropolis site, where a permit was first issued in 2009, remains largely a 6,000sq.m ex- cavation pit, with only limited underground parking works carried out in recent years. The Sterling proposal thus forms part of a wider cluster of developments steadily shifting the area's character towards intensified tourist accommo- dation, alongside offices, resi- dential towers and large-scale mixed-use projects. The cumulative impact of this touristification is like- ly to become an increasingly important planning question as individual projects are as- sessed across the Gżira-Ta' Xbiex-Msida corridor. A rendering of the proposed project in Ta Xbiex