Exclusive: Times Of Malta Plans To Vacate New Mrieħel Offices And Lease Them To Debono Group
Times Of Malta is set to move out of its Mrieħel offices, five to six years after they moved into the premises.
The Debono Group’s property CEO Luke Coppini confirmed with Lovin Malta that they are in talks with the Allied Group, which owns the Times, for the long-term lease of their premises in Mrieħel.
They didn’t confirm or deny a report by university lecturer Simon Mercieca that they intend to convert the office block into a new Toyota showroom. However, the Debono Group has already confirmed it plans to convert the current Toyota showroom in Ħaż-Żebbuġ into a mixed-use commercial development.
Times of Malta moved into the Mrieħel offices in 2017-2018 after around 90 years operating from its original building in Valletta’s St Paul Street.
The current Toyota showroom in Ħaż-Żebbuġ
Back then, Allied Newspapers Limited’s managing director Michel Rizzo described the move as another chapter in the newspaper’s “glorious history”, which allow it to bring its businesses under one roof.
Progress Press, an Allied company which back then printed the Times newspapers, had already opened a printing facility in Mrieħel in 2011.
However, in 2019 – a year after Times moved to Mrieħel – Allied announced that it would start printing digitally at Miller.
In 2021, former Allied managing directors Vince Buhagiar and Adrian Hillman were amongst several people charged with financial crimes over suspicions that they had received kickbacks from former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, whose company Kasco had supplied Progress Press with the printing equipment. They are pleading not guilty.
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