Cost estimates for a new tourism studies campus at Smart City in Kalkara have soared by a whopping 34 per cent in just over a year.
The price tag for the project now stands at €75 million, according to Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis.
The relocation of the Institute for Tourism Studies from St George’s Bay was first announced by the government in October 2015, when Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said the new campus would cost €56 million.
The new cost projections were communicated by Dr Zammit Lewis last month in reply to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Claudio Grech.
When asked to justify the significant jump in cost, a spokeswoman for the Tourism Minister yesterday said that the “project intent and scope have been developed further” since the announcement in the Budget for 2016.
The ministry noted that the project was being handled by Projects Malta, a government agency responsible for public-private partnerships. The agency falls within Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi’s remit at the Office of the Prime Minister.
“Projects Malta has developed detailed cost estimates for the construction of the new campus, which includes a new faculty, practice facilities, a high-end teaching hotel with 280 beds, dormitories for students, office space and all supporting infrastructure,” the ministry spokeswoman said.
The ITS relocation became necessary when the government decided to dispose of the land in St George’s Bay that houses the existing school. The ministry said funding for the new Smart City campus was totally independent of the sale of the ITS site in St George’s Bay.
The new building is expected to be bigger with the planning application making reference to a school hosting 2,500 students, up from the current 800.
According to the planning application, the proposed Smart City campus will also include a 14-storey hotel with 135 rooms, a spa and rooftop pool, government offices and underground parking. It will be built over an undeveloped area of 11,000 square metres within the Smart City precincts.
The proposed hotel would be the first to go up at Smart City, which currently houses offices and restaurants.
The Tourism Ministry is insisting that the investment in the new campus will strengthen the institute’s commitment to providing “the tourism industry with a well-prepared, professionally educated and highly trained workforce”.
It is expected the new campus will be operational in 2019.
The ministry was forced to defend the move last year after some students complained that the new school would be removed from the tourism hub in St Julian’s, where most of them found job placements while studying.
The existing ITS site will eventually be transformed into a hotel and leisure complex and luxury apartments.
The Seabank Group was the only bidder for the St George’s Bay site, and the company is currently negotiating the land transfer with the government.
The company, which wants to develop a Hard Rock hotel, commercial outlets and two residential towers, is obliged to pay a one-off upfront payment and an annual ground rent.
Both of the figures are still subject to negotiation.
The government had commissioned Deloitte, an audit firm, to carry out a valuation of the ITS site after The Sunday Times of Malta, last June, reported industry concerns that the public land was going to be sold off on the cheap.
The ITS site is one of nine locations in Paceville around which the Paceville master plan was made.