Welcome to St George’s Bay: Bridge to link Decesare’s Paceville hotels

A pedestrian bridge is being proposed high above the main road leading to St George’s Bay to link two hotels owned by the Eden Leisure Group. 

The bridge will link the pool level on the 10th floor of the Intercontinental with the 4th and 6th levels of the Voco Hotel, still under construction. 

Plans submitted to the Planning Authority foresee the erection of a steel structure with the inscription ‘Welcome to Saint George’s Bay’ written on it. 

It will cement the insistence of the Decesare family that owns the Eden Leisure Group, to brand the destination as St George’s Bay as opposed to Paceville. 

The 13-storey Voco hotel is being built above the existing Eden SuperBowl, which will be retained. 

The 338-bed four-star Voco hotel forms part of a mixed development that includes 4,497sq.m of office space and 2,137sq.m of retail space. 

The hotel benefitted from a policy allowing hotels an extra two floors over and above the height limitation established in the local plan, despite harbouring two large floors of offices. 

Initially, PA officials had expressed doubts on whether the policy can be applied due to the considerable amount of office space included in the project.   

The development was eventually approved after the developer’s architect declared that the offices will be used for the management operations of three hotels - the InterContinental Malta, the Holiday Inn Express and the new hotel. 

Moreover, according to the architect a major part of the office component will be sited above the existing bowling area at the corner part between Triq Santu Wistin and Sqaq Lourdes, “hence not within the footprint of the proposed hotel”. 

The application of the hotel heights policy was also endorsed by the Malta Tourism Authority.