The Pendergardens project will continue in July with another €50 million invested on the second phase, which will see more apartments as well as commercial and office space.
Pender Ville Ltd chairman Edmund Gatt Baldacchino said the bid bond to finance €42m of the investment had been oversubscribed. He was speaking during a visit by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
Pender Ville Ltd was formed in 2005 by a consortium of local investors to acquire and develop the Pender Place site covering an area of 18,500 square metres.
Excavation on the site began in 2007. In 2009, part of Mercury House site opposite the site, covering an area of 950 square metres, was sold to FIMBank plc as its global headquarters.
The Exchange building is expected to become a state-of-the-art business centre.
The first phase of the project, with an investment of €40 million, saw the development of 150 apartments where people from 20 nationalities are currently living.
The second phase includes three blocks with 120 apartments, and 10,500 square metres of office/commercial space
There is also an underground car park for 400 cars.
With an investment of a further €50 million, the second phase will see the development of three blocks which will house 120 one, two and three-bedroom apartments, 5,500 square metres of office space and another 5,000 square metres of commercial space.
Work on one of the three blocks is already under way and nearly 70 per cent of the apartments have already been sold on plan.
The rest of the second phase is expected to begin in July and will see some 200 people working on site.
Moreover, Mr Gatt Baldacchino said, the main road leading from Regional Road will be widened and upgraded.
Dr Muscat praised the development and the people who invested in the bid bond for their confidence in the project and the Maltese economy.
He said there was a demand for top quality properties and it was useless for the government to take initiatives to attract people, including through the cash-for-citizenship scheme, if the product they were after was not available.
The government, he said, would continue to work on its commitment to cut bureaucracy and red tape.