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| Tuesday, 09 February 2010 |
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Upbeat Project
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12 April 2007
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New, big construction projects are becoming all too commonplace now – a cursory estimate places the number at 10, for an investment of some Lm1 billion all scheduled for the next five years. One of these is the Pendergardens development at the edge of St Julians and Paceville. Simon Gatt spoke to Edmund Gatt Baldacchino, the developer’s chairman, Peter Diacono, the CEO and Michael De Maria, marketing manager to find out if all this is sustainable.
“It is true that there are a lot of big projects – but they are in different areas,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino began. “And while there will be a big stock of properties coming on to the market, they will not all be doing so at the same time: all the developments, ours included, are phased.”What sets the Pendergardens development apart from most other large projects is its location, target market and mix of property types. “We are building for the middle to the upper end of the market,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino said. “We are not, like many of the other projects, relying only on the upper segment.”This gives Pendergardens a much wider appeal, reinforced by the “total mix of residential properties” planned for the complex, as explained by Mr DeMaria. “We will have villas, three, two and single bedroomed apartments, and studio flats. There is a complete variety – a community, in fact.”This is, in many ways, a reflection of the changing lifestyles of the Maltese people. “People are looking for safety and convenience,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino said. “The trend is for people to look for properties that offer easy access to amenities, that provide a secure environment and increasingly that have public spaces and services that are properly managed.”
ZoningThere is also a large square – a pjazza – which, like most of the area is pedestrianised. “At 2,400m2, it is the size of Pjazza Regina in Valletta, and it is secure,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino said Adjacent to the Pendergardens development, on the Mercury House Site, there is an area set aside for commercial use – shops, restaurants and so on..Put that together with the location – just off Malta’s main transportation avenue, the Regional Road – and the proximity to the centres of Paceville and St Julians, and what you get is a development that should prove popular as well as practical – at least, that is what the Penderville executives are convinced of.“We have achieved a good balance here, I believe,” said Mr Gatt Baldachino.
The Penderville consortium signed the contract for the land in December 2005, after a competitive tendering process that was awarded in June 2005. The consortium was not idle in the months between the award and the signature of the contract: design and planning work began immediately, so much so that the first submittal in the application process began in September 2005, based on the Development Brief published in March 2005.The outline development permit was issued in February 2007. Works have now begun: the site is being cleared, preparing for what will essentially be a small community with town square, commercial areas and a variety of different residential propositions. “The past 18 months have been very busy – intensive planning in both design and phasing,” Mr Diacono said.
StudiesThe consortium has also been through a complex series of studies for the extensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) every developer is supposed to submit with the application for planning permission. “The EIA covers a very large number of areas – from social and economic effects to shadowing and wind studies, and an exhaustive traffic impact assessment,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino explained. “It is a complex process, because some studies need to be carried out after others have been completed. It costs a lot of money – the consultants are independent, appointed and paid for by the developer, but drawn from MEPA’s list of approved EIA consultants.”Malta cannot supply experts in all the areas that need to be studied, Mr Gatt Baldacchino continued. “For some parts of the EIA –the wind impact study, for example – we had to hire experts from abroad. But the results were useful: we have used the studies in designing the buildings. With tall buildings, wind is an important engineering issue as well!”Pendergarden’s management has also spent a lot of time discussing the various issues the development raises with the residents of the surrounding areas. The consortium has gone a long way to try and minimise the impact the design and actual works will have.
The villa section of the development has been placed on the side of the site closest to the existing villas at The Gardens, with a private road to further set the high rise buildings away from The Gardens residential areas. The commercial areas are away towards Mercury House, separate from the residential zones. Furthermore, the excavations close to the existing villas will not be going very deep, allaying another fear the residents had expressed. “Excavations for the car park have also been reduced on the other end of the development,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino said.
ResponsibilitiesDespite the protests against the project, the consortium is taking its responsibilities seriously. “We are committed to develop a quality product. But we want to go further – we do not want to just bulldoze our way through here,” Mr Gatt Baldacchino said. “We want to be exemplary developers. We will be taking steps to ensure the minimal impact on the surroundings – dowsing the site with water to keep the dust down and an effective perimeter wall, for example.”The project, which will include some 330 residential units when it is completed in five and a half years’ time, will be an opportunity to upgrade this portion of St Julians.“There will be a lot of open, public spaces available in both the residential and the commercial areas.”
Mr Gatt Baldacchino explained. The commercial centre on the Mercury House site is expected to be working some 18 hours a day, with offices, shops, cafes, restaurants and other services. There is even a ‘Cold War’ heritage site which has been almost forgotten: a Cable and Wireless exchange in a chamber hewn out of the rock deep underground, to protect Malta’s telecommunications in time of war. Cable and Wireless are long gone; the exchange is still there, and will be opened to the public, providing a point of interest for the many tourists in the area beyond the purely commercial. |
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