Portelli’s Birkirkara makeover: five-storey block opposite Big Ben

One of mega-developer Joseph Portelli’s companies, Excel Investments, is proposing a five-storey block of 29 flats and seven shops opposite the Big Ben store in Birkirkara.

The application will see the demolition of a two-storey building partly occupied by the Fajsu garage and an overlying residence between Naxxar Road and Triq il-Mithna.

The proposed development will include 17 garages on two basement levels and seven retail shops at ground level, with 29 residential units from the second to the receded fifth level. A pool and jacuzzi are also being proposed on the fifth floor.

The local plan limits development in this area to three floors. If approved the new development will create a blank party wall on both sides, thus paving the way for similar adjacent developments.

This area in Birkirkara has already been transformed by the demolition of the modernist Villa Moira and its private gardens which hosted 54 citrus trees, to make way for a car park for the Smart supermarket.

The application had originally been presented as the first stage for a future commercial development; the car park was subsequently extended by demolishing two adjacent townhouse whose facade was retained as a shell around the car park.

The Superintendence for Cultural Heritage had opposed the demolition of these townhouses, arguing that these mid-20th century townhouses offered a degree of legibility to the streetscape.

But the PA’s case officer overruled the SCH, arguing that the architect’s proposal to retain the façade was an acceptable solution in a commercial area, and that the façade could be integrated in a future development.

An eight-storey high home for the elderly is also being proposed on the Bonnici Textiles building opposite the nearby iconic Ta’ Ganu windmill in Birkirkara, which is scheduled. The new development – also proposed by Portelli’s Excel Limited – is in the buffer zone for the Ġnien tal-Kmand, a scheduled garden that forms part of the group of gardens built in various localities in Malta, in the early years of the 19th century when the island was a British protectorate.

This means that the developer will have to present photomontages showing the impact of the development on the surrounding area.

The development is also 100m away from the modernist Villino Grech, an iconic home characterised by its V-shaped concrete columns. The building is protected by law but is suffering from evident signs of neglect.