Sliema domino effect: 13-storey hotel on Milner after Astra high-rise

Developers Bonnici Bros. have presented plans to develop a 13-storey hotel on a row of existing townhouses along Milner Street in Sliema.

The development includes 56 hotel rooms and other hotel facilities.

The application comes in the wake of the approval last year of the redevelopment of the Astra Hotel, now owned by the Preluna Hotel, which will rise to the same height of the Preluna, once Malta’s highest building.

Subsequently, the Preluna also applied for a new 14-storey extension on an existing seven-storey hotel wing that overlooked Milner Street on top of the Sciantusi pizzeria, which is adjacent to the hotel proposed by Bonnici Bros.

If approved, the new hotel will create yet another huge blank party wall on its other side, possibly paving the way for even more development in the same street.

In this way the precedent created by Malta’s first high-rise hotel, which dates back to the 1960s, is paving the way for hotel development of the same height in Milner Street, which is officially still designated as a residential area despite the various commercial commitments undertaken in this street in the past decades.

The Planning Authority had approved the incorporation of the neighbouring Astra in the Preluna Hotel, after the case officer originally recommended a refusal when noting the Astra would be 7m higher than the Milner Street height limit, even after considering the extra three storeys allowed for hotels.

Milner Street is zoned in the local plan as a residential area where new hotels are not normally permitted.

However, in his assessment of the Astra Hotel proposal, the PA’s case officer acknowledged existing commitments on site for the existing Astra, the Preluna wing, the Europa Hotel, and the Park Hotel, and the fact that the area is part of a tourism zone.

Bonnici Bros, a construction group with a major stake in road-building projects, have recently started to diversify operations, recently reactivating an application to construct a supermarket in Burmarrad – outside development zones – after Infrastructure Malta presented plans for a new roundabout in front of the proposed supermarket.

Their application had laid dormant since 2018, but has since been resurrected after IM presented the plans for a roundabout right next to the site of the proposed supermarket. Another supermarket, Scott’s, is already present in Burmarrad.