Five Hotel Towers Proposed Along Sliema's Seafront

Five hotel proposals from four developers have surfaced along Sliema's seafront within recent weeks, mapping almost continuously across one of Malta's most densely built coastal stretches. Together they would add hundreds of rooms in buildings ranging from 11 to 16 storeys, running from the Qui-Si-Sana promenade in the west to the Sliema–Gżira border in the east.

At Qui-Si-Sana, Carlo Stivala proposes to replace an existing ten-storey building — judged to have no conservation value — with a 16-level, 139-room hotel. The scheme would involve internal demolition of the first seven floors, followed by full demolition and reconstruction from the seventh level upwards. The frontage carries a general height limit of roughly 35 metres, equivalent to about ten levels.

Stivala is also named as the developer behind two 15-storey hotel proposals along The Strand. Moving east, the existing eight-floor Chalet Hotel faces full demolition under a proposal by Ephraim Schembri's Sliema Chalet Co. , to be replaced by a three-star, 15-level building containing 108 rooms and 216 beds.

A short distance along, Christopher Grech's Strand House Limited is proposing a 15-storey hotel on an already-cleared plot between The Strand and Manoel Dimech Street, near the Busy Bee Cafeteria — a site previously earmarked for apartments. The remaining two proposals extend existing hotels rather than replace them. AX Holdings, which owns the Victoria Hotel, is seeking to add 36 rooms and 72 beds, largely on existing upper floors — the most contained of the five schemes.

At the Sliema–Gżira border, the Waterfront Hotel on the corner of Parisio Street has lodged application 2552/26 to add 107 rooms in a new building that would replace an adjacent five-storey school and rise to match the hotel's existing 11 levels. Several proposals appear to press against current planning limits. Under the local plan, hotels in Sliema may build one additional floor above the standard height limit, with up to two further floors available under separate hotel-height policy provisions.

A 16-level tower at Qui-Si-Sana and a 15-level replacement on the Chalet site both exceed what those allowances would straightforwardly permit against the roughly ten-level baseline for those frontages. The policy framework governing those limits is also in flux. Deputy Prime Minister Ian Borg put hotel-height rules under reconsideration at the end of last year.

Planning reference numbers have been published only for the Waterfront Hotel extension; the application stage of each of the remaining four proposals has not been specified. Five applications from four developers reach across much of the Sliema waterfront, arriving within the same narrow window. The hotel-height policy review initiated by Borg is ongoing, and its outcome will bear directly on whether proposals already pressing the existing limits can advance.