Television House, the broadcasting landmark in the nation’s collective memory, is set to make way for apartments, garages and penthouses as the Public Broadcasting Services is to be physically downsized to operate from a part of Rediffusion House on St Luke’s Road.
The proposal emerges from two applications presented by PBS chairman Joe Fenech Conti to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority last week.
The first application is for the demolition of Rediffusion House and the construction of a ground level and mezzanine commercial space, as well as flats on the first, second and third floors, and penthouses and underlying garages.
The second application is for the demolition of Television House and the construction of apartments and penthouses.
According to the Ministry for Investments and Information Technology, the development of apartments is set to generate the money for the construction of the new PBS headquarters on part of the existing Rediffusion House.
Although PBS is applying to construct the apartments, the state broadcaster will not involve itself in the sale of apartments as the site will be sold before the development takes place.
This emerges from a second and final reply sent to MaltaToday by the ministry yesterday afternoon. In an earlier reply, the government dissociated itself completely from PBS’s application to develop apartments.
When first contacted, a ministry spokesperson claimed that as soon as PBS announced its intention to include a residential component in the migration project, “the Ministry had immediately rejected this proposal and directed PBS to remove any form of residential element from the project.”
“Moreover, it is pertinent to point out that the project has as yet not been approved by the Ministry,” the spokesperson told MaltaToday.
After MaltaToday contacted an incredulous Joe Fenech Conti asking him whether he intends to proceed with the application in the absence of government approval, the ministry issued a new reply, claiming that the original reply was “wrong and largely misleading” and was based on a “personal oversight”.
Claiming that discussions on the project “took place a few months before,” the minister’s head of secretariat Claudio Grech claimed that upon “re-checking (his) notes” he was issuing the “correct reply”.
In his second reply, Grech revealed that the ministry had “cleared the application process” but has not yet authorised the execution of the plan pending a final feasibility assessment.
The PBS currently occupies two sites in Gwardamangia, housing two separate buildings known as Rediffusion and Television House respectively. “These buildings were built back in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, and although a number of changes and upgrades have been carried out over the years, these premises have today become obsolete and can no longer serve their purpose efficiently,” Grech told MaltaToday.
In view of this a study was carried out in order to identify the current and future requirements of PBS in relation to the existing properties available. “It was immediately apparent that in view of the change in technologies and working practices that have taken place in broadcasting over the years, a centralised and more compact premises would be far more efficient from an operational point of view.” Various alternative proposals on how to finance and where best to locate the proposed new premises were studied, and it was eventually decided to use part of the existing Rediffusion House site to house the new headquarters, whilst using the remaining and leftover parts of the site so as to generate funds to finance the project.
Following submission of the outline application to MEPA in 2006, detailed designs of the proposed new PBS headquarters as well the respective cost estimates were also produced, to establish more accurately the overall project cost and site area required to be retained by PBS.
The resulting leftover sites were also studied in detail, to determine how they could be best used to generate the required financing for the construction of the new PBS headquarters.
Although applications have been submitted on all the PBS Gwardamangia sites, according to the government PBS would only be involved in the development of their new headquarters, while the remaining areas described as “leftovers” would be sold “prior to development”.
Full development permit applications have been submitted on the sites proposed to be sold since “this would ensure a more comprehensive development from a planning point of view, whilst at the same time also making it easier to market and sell the respective properties accordingly.”