The expansion and restoration of the Phoenicia Hotel in Floriana will be run in parallel with the City Gate projects and the utmost effort will be made for the work to be ready by 2013.

The hotel, which recently received a full development permit for two new wings and for the restoration of the facade, was this afternoon visited by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Tourism Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco.

The hotel will also see the construction of 41 bedrooms, it will get a landscaped roof and its stable house in St John’s Ditch, which was built by the British, would be restored.

The Phoenicia Hotel was built partly on the place-of-arms – a place outside a fortified town where troops could assemble for defence – just outside Valletta’s main gate.

Plans to build the hotel started in 1935 and British architect William Bryce Binnie was commissioned to oversee the project one year later. The site was hit during World War II, leaving the east side badly damaged. The hotel was opened in 1947 and several alterations were made in the 1960s. Another floor was added in the 1990s.