Mercury House will get a new 19-storey hotel, a nine-storey residential building and an extra two storeys on its almost-constructed tower after the Planning Authority gave the green light to the new plans.

The 19-storey hotel will have 130 rooms over a total footprint of 6464sqm. It will also use a transform an underground vault into a spa.

The “second phase” of the Mercury Towers project is set to be built on the current GO exchange building along Triq Sant’ Andrija.

Gozitan developer Joe Portelli had initially proposed constructing two office towers of 19 and 18 floors, despite development briefs from 2005 earmarking the maximum height as 15 storeys.

Following negotiations, Portelli eventually rescinded plans for both towers, proposing one huge development, currently standing at 33 storeys.

St Julian’s local council mayor Albert Buttigieg has raised new objections to the plan.

“The PA has repeatedly chosen to judge massive developments in a piecemeal fashion.

The lack of a master plan for the locality and the lack of consideration for the negative social impact assessment (SIA) report show that this process is flawed,” he said.

“The glossy marketing exercise we were given today is meaningless as this will cause problems with traffic, noise and vibrations from constantly ongoing construction works. The local council believes that there will be a negative impact on the aesthetics of the area as well a massive loss of open, public spaces,” he added.

The board members all voted in favour of the project with the exception of Alison Bonello and St Julian’s mayor Albert Buttigieg, with a total of nine in favour and two against.

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