Works on converting the Embassy complex in Valletta into a four-star hotel will start in three weeks' time, the developers said on Monday.

The building will retain its current height but will become a six-storey, 81-room hotel with a rooftop restaurant, pool and internal courtyard. 

The only changes to the facade will be an increase in the number of windows. The hotel's entrance will be from Strait Street. 

The property will also include some shops with separate entrances, a bingo hall, and cinemas in the basement. 

The project is expected to be completed within a year. 

The developers had originally sought to add two extra floors to the building, which is already one of the highest buildings overlooking Marsamxett Harbour, but this was turned down by the Planning Authority.

The hotel role is not new for the site - it was actually used as such in the eighteenth century. That building fell victim to aerial bombing in the second world war and was rebuilt in the 1950s to house two large cinema halls: the Embassy and the Ambassador.

In the late 1990s it was converted to a shopping complex, with small cinema halls located in the upper levels.