db Group denies Jason Azzopardi claim City Centre project to include land reclamation

The db Group today denied that claim made by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi that the group’s City Centre proposal for the former ITS site will now include excavation in order to use the material for land reclamation at the mouth of St George’s Bay, St Julians

“This is an outright lie. The City Centre project did not, does not, and will not contemplate land reclamation,” the group said.

In his post on Facebook, the MP said that there will be an increase of 40,000 square metres of excavation – equivalent to two football grounds with two floors beneath them. This will inevitably mean land reclamation, Azzopardi said.

In its reply, the group said that considerable design changes were carried out for various reasons. “We wanted to stay true to our commitment to retain the whole scheduled military barracks (former ITS) in place. We had no obligation to do so because we had clearance from the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage to redevelop the existing Grade 2 military blocks and retaining and amalgamating the south portico façade. Yet we have gone a step further and proposed to retain the military blocks in their totality, including the cold war substation and its underlying rock base as well as other underground structures and reservoirs,” the group said.

As a result of these initiatives, which we took in the interest of protecting our cultural and historical heritage, the main podium level where the former ITS portico stood has been lowered by over 6m in order to retain the military blocks as they were and thereby also respecting their exiting finished floor levels.

By doing so, a considerable volume of development has been eliminated from the previous scheme and subsequently the project amenities, including parking facilities had to be shifted downwards. 

Above all, this change has already been given full clearance by ERA, the group said.

In other words, not only is Jason Azzopardi lying that our Group will be excavating for the purposes of land reclamation, he’s lying even more about the intent of the excavation. Contrary to what he suggests, it is being done to serve the preservation of our cultural and historical heritage and not to harm it.

The db group reiterated that such lies are unbecoming and harmful to a balanced and fact-based national debate on what will, at €300 million, be the largest private investment by a single investor in the history of this country. “When such lies are perpetrated by an honourable member of parliament, their insidiousness, dangerous and anti-democratic nature gains even more weight,” the group said.