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 growing number of proposed tourist accommodation projects transforming the Gżira-Ta’ Xbiex-Msida area.

Planning application PA/06058/26 proposes the demolition of the existing service station structures, excavation 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 being 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 noted that the applicant intended the car park to serve nearby offices “until the whole site is redeveloped”, with the petrol station expected to be decommissioned “in around 8 years’ time”.

The previous application was assessed under the North Harbour Local Plan, SPED, DC15 and the 2020 Fuel Station Policy. The latter imposed a seven-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 hotel on the site occupied by Villino Micallef, an early- to mid-20th-century Art Nouveau townhouse.

Several larger hotel projects remain pending. These include an 11-storey, 244-room hotel 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 developments. 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 previously 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 excavation 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 accommodation, alongside offices, residential towers and large-scale mixed-use projects.

The cumulative impact of this touristification is likely to become an increasingly important planning question as individual projects are assessed across the Gżira-Ta’ Xbiex-Msida corridor.