Investor Mark Weingard believes these two rooms could host royalty once properly converted. Photo: Jason BorgInvestor Mark Weingard is planning to get involved with at least three major projects, with his time currently being taken up by a luxury boutique hotel on St Barbara’s Bastions and another site on St Paul Street in Valletta.
The British entrepreneur recently bought into the Tigné Point business centre through his company Benny Holdings, in which he holds a 92 per cent shareholding. The 2,000 sq.m. site will host a 12,500 sq.m. business centre as a joint venture with Midi. Benny Holdings paid €11.7 million for the 50/50 partnership.
Mr Weingard made his fortune when he sold his financial services company a few years ago and decided to focus on sustainable projects with a strong emphasis on philanthropy: he set up a charity, Inspirasia, which is supported by a percentage of his company’s revenue. He moved here two years ago.
The fact that he does not really need to work for a living any more gives him the freedom to focus on projects which he can pursue with a passion – and the business centre is clearly not enough.
“It’s a great investment but there is not much I can do there; it is pretty much all sorted out already by Midi. I needed to get something more challenging, something that I could pursue with passion,” he said.
Mr Weingard bought adjacent buildings on the bastions, which he is converting into a hotel which will be branded Iniala, a name already used for his flagship hotel in Thailand. One building will be used to create two 2-bedroom and three 1-bedroom apartments, while another will have eight rooms, with prices ranging from €350 to €2,000 a night. The intention is to complete them by the end of 2015.
“Our property in Thailand was built in record time – we had 300 people working on the site at one point. We were all close to cracking. I don’t want to do the same thing again!” he said. “But I want to do something very different with this hotel. I will probably use some of the amazing designers that we used in Thailand but the hotel will have a more commercial feel.
I see so much potential, such amazing opportunities
“The top floor will be a restaurant with stunning views of Valletta; I plan to open other fine-dining restaurants. I believe that Malta should be known as a gastronomic experience – which is lacking at the moment. Malta is simply not talked about for its food.”
He is one of the bidders for the old covered market in Valletta, and has bought the building behind it on St Paul Street – tenants and all – hoping to turn it into a gastrohotel at a more accessible price.
“Valletta deserves to have a whole cluster of new hotels and restaurants before it becomes the capital of culture in 2018. These attract a very different sort of clientele,” he said.
He already has itchy feet and is constantly looking into new projects – multimillion euro ones – and might even rope in other investors, although he admitted with a grin that he gets more out of projects when he can keep them as his own personal “meaningful experience”. These could be anything from restaurants and a hostel to a high-end, modern apartment block, as he believes that there are numerous clients who would love to live in Valletta but who do not want to get involved in conversion projects.
How fast he moves onto new projects will depend a great deal on finding the right people for his team and he is currently on the lookout for good Maltese designers and architects.
“I see so much potential, such amazing opportunities. This is what drives me. This is what adds meaning to my life,” he grinned.