Sports village will include 300 residential units

The White Rocks sports village will include 300 residential units, which Sports Parliamentary Secretary Clyde Puli insists is a "calculated risk" the UK investors are willing to take.

Mr Puli said the investors were aware of the limitations of the property market. The real estate project would not rise above street level and would not include any towers.

"Without the accommodation, the sports village project will not be feasible... That is why we had to compensate with the units. The financial model would not work without this and the land is the price the government was ready to sacrifice for sports. The investors, White Rocks Holding Company, had requested more units but the government drew a firm line at 300", he said.

Another precondition of the €200 million sports village, announced by the government on Wednesday, is that, on its completion by the investors, the sports facilities will be the property of the Maltese.

In exchange for the construction, operation and maintenance to international standards of the sports village, the government will be giving the investor 221,000 square metres of coastal area on which the dilapidated White Rocks complex has stood idle for years.

Formal negotiations between the UK consortium and a team of experts for the government started and were expected to last at least six months, Mr Puli said. "The beauty of the project is that the investors are carrying all risks."

The company will be retaining the commercial component, including residential and retail, until the grant, the terms of which have still to be negotiated, is up.

Owning the state-of-the-art sports facilities, including a flexible stadium, with seating for 6,000 spectators, was not enough for Mr Puli, who has also established that their professional upkeep would also be in the company's hands.

"What we are interested in is facilities of international standards, which are constantly maintained to professional levels. This is a sports - not an investment - project," he insisted.

The government would be determining what it needed through meetings it is having with the sports community.

"Maltese sport is mostly part-time and we know the main slots required are after and before working hours, leaving a free period during the day. The investors need to bring sports tourism to fill those empty time windows, the money generated from which will go towards maintaining the facilities. If they do not succeed, they have to create a sinking fund from the profits of the retail and residential components," Mr Puli explained.

It is in the company's interest to market the project and among its expert team is PMP, which bid for and won the Beijing Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, he said.

It is estimated that the pre-development stage will cost €7 million. If the agreement were to fall through, the investors would carry the risk.

But Mr Puli is confident the project will materialise, despite the prime site's somewhat dismal track record and the limitations of the local sports scene.

Asked what guarantee it could give the public that the project would not suffer the same fate as others for White Rocks, he said the parameters had been clearly defined, were non-negotiable and had been accepted.

He denied that the sports village was too ambitious. "We have done our investigations and the consortium has the financial muscle. This project will not drain it... The investors have also done their homework, confirming its feasibility," he said.

It has been agreed that within three years from planning permits, the first part of the sports facilities would have to be completed, with the family park and the rest by the fourth year, and the entire project on the fifth.