Seabank Group has received at least €1.5 million in revenue from the reservation of residential units in towers planned on public land still occupied by the Institute for Tourism Studies.
In an interview with The Sunday Times of Malta, CEO Arthur Gauci said one of the two towers, of 29 floors, has practically been taken up, at a price of €50,000 per floor.
Customers are paying that deposit to “reserve” the floor, which can then be broken down into separate apartments they can sell if the project goes through.
This scheme essentially funds the project investment.
This newspaper had reported last month that the Seabank Group was selling residential units through real estate agents Remax even though the land hosting the ITS had not yet been transferred to the company.
If we were to pay commercial rates for the land, a hotel on its own would never be viable
ITS is still operating from the site in St George’s Bay, St Julian’s, until its transfer to Smart City, at a cost of €56 million to taxpayers, as announced in the last Budget.
Mr Gauci denied the company was offering €6.5 million for the site, as reported by this newspaper based on information from a number of sources. He said it was a package, which would amount to more than that figure. He said he could not reveal the offer.
The package offered by Seabank includes private funds which the government will take in return for transferring owners’ units to freehold.
Mr Gauci made it clear that commercial rates for the land in such a prime site would not be viable without residential units. “If we were to pay commercial rates for the land, a hotel on its own would never be viable… The numbers just don’t add up”.
He avoided controversy on what potential investors have claimed was a call for proposals that favoured Seabank. Although admitting the company has been working on the project since the previous administration, he denied the fruition of the project was linked to a pre-electoral promise from the Labour Party.
At the same time, Mr Gauci admitted his denial of an interest in the site given to this newspaper in September 2014 was false. “We decided [then] not to enter into a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer about our intentions,” he said.
He insisted the company would have to follow planning laws, as well as the Public Domain Act that protects the foreshore in the public interest. The project would extend to the beach in St George’s Bay.