db Group plans on adding seven more floors to St George's Bay towers

The db Group is seeking planning permission to build an extra seven floors at its mega-development in St George’s Bay.

If approved, the PA application (PA/03218/25) would allow the company to build 82 more apartments at the mega-development, turning two 17- and 18-storey towers into ones rising 23 and 25 floors, respectively.

According to the company's website, all but a handful of units in the development have been sold. Remaining units start at €1.1 million for a 200 square metre, two-bedroom apartment.

Db Group had initially planned to build a 38-storey tower at the site but eventually reduced that proposal to 31 storeys, with company CEO Arthur Gauci at the time saying that the company had “listened and acted” to critics. In December 2020, the company unveiled modified plans that effectively split that single tower into two: instead of a 31-storey building, the company said it would build two 17-storey ones instead.

A sketch of the additional floors. Photo: Planning Authority

At the time, the company had emphasised that it had “no legal, planning or procedural obligation” to make that change and was only doing so because it was a “reasonable” one that “improved the project in every sense.”

Ultimately, the PA approved plans to build a 17-storey tower and an 18-storey one, alongside a 12-storey hotel at the site. The decision was appealed, but a court gave the go-ahead to complete the project last year.

Excavation and construction work at the site began in October 2024. 

In a statement sent to Times of Malta about its latest plans, the company insisted that the St George’s Bay site lies in an area where the use of Floor Area Ratio (FAR) is permissible.

This mechanism determines the potential and allowable number floors of medium and high-rise developments, it said.

"In 2021, the approved residential towers at 18 and 17 floors respectively were approved without utilising the full potential Gross floor Area (GFA), meaning that surplus GFA was available to the developer but never utilised,” a company spokesperson said.