Paceville: 33-storey ‘sleek’ tower to rival high Mercury House

Plans for a 33-storey, mixed-use tower at the entrance to Paceville will rival Joseph Portelli’s Mercury House tower.

The project, proposed by Paul Xuereb’s PX Lettings, is being proposed on an area previously occupied by low-density villas on the road leading to the Eden Cinema, occupying third of the 3,400sq.m site.

Back in 2018, the same company had proposed a mixed-use 25-storey and a medium-rise of 11 storeys.

Paul Xuereb described the plans as a “sensitive answer to the contemporary challenges of Paceville’s development.”

The tower will include serviced apartments on its upper floors, a business centre in the lower part of the building, and ancillary retail and restaurant spaces to complement the public plaza. Parking facilities will also be provided to cater for the development.

The building, which tapers upwards to reduce shadowing, features circular windows overlooking its extensive terraces, and completely does away with ornament and traditional double-skin cladding to present “a strong, slim, sleek, and powerful silhouette”.

The owners, who have abided by the principles set out in the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) policy, believe that a high rise in such a dense area is a better choice than engulfing the site with “a characterless, conventional block that would occupy the whole site area and leave no public open space”.

Architect Alessandro De Santis described building a horizontally dense conventional block as “the easier solution”

“A high rise, in this specific site of the heavily urbanized location of Paceville, is the best way to preserve and improve public areas, liberating more land to create open space available to all.”

Details of the proposed tower had first emerged in documentation recently submitted to the Environment and Resources Authority in 2018. 

The now discarded Paceville masterplan had earmarked the site for a business centre consisting of “a relatively low-rise building complex” rising to a maximum of 11 storeys.  The masterplan was ditched due to a conflict of interest of the consultants engaged in drafting it.

The masterplan suggested that due “to the highly visible and accessible location, a high-quality architectural treatment would be appropriate to create an important local landmark welcoming people into Paceville.” The Paceville masterplan was never approved.