MIDI wanted €15 million for Fort Tigné and Fort Manoel
The government had declined the offer because of the 'outrageous' price
The MIDI consortium had put a price tag of around €15 million to sell Fort Tigné and Fort Manoel back to the government, Times of Malta is informed.
The offer came around a year before the consortium agreed to sell Fort Tigné to developer Joseph Portelli for €2.5 million, a deal MIDI announced last month.
The government had declined the offer because of the “outrageous” price, senior sources said.
“The upkeep of forts is expensive. They definitely bring a loss and not a profit. The deal would have meant MIDI keeping the meat and getting rid of the bone,” they said.
However, one other government official saw events slightly differently.
“More than declining the offer, the government has grown in its ambitions. We will now not only take the fort but all of Manoel Island, and we are returning Fort Tigné back to the people.”
Contacted for a reaction, a spokesperson for MIDI said:
“MIDI has been in discussions with the government regarding the reversion of Fort Manoel and Fort Tigné and the recovery of restoration costs incurred in respect thereof. This matter was discussed within the broader context of amendments to the concession deed.”
Fort ManoelIn December, MIDI and Portelli’s company, J. Portelli Projects Ltd, announced they had entered into a promise-of-sale agreement for the 18th-century fortification in Sliema.
Portelli said he planned to turn the fort into a “high-end, low-density hotel”.
However, Prime Minister Robert Abela threw cold water on that idea, describing it as “obscene” and pledging to return Fort Tigné to the people.
MIDI reacted, saying it had held talks with the government and Heritage Malta about returning the fort to the state before it sought private investment. The details of any potential government intervention to return Fort Tigné are not known.
MIDI has some 75 years left on a lease it signed for the site at the turn of the century.
That lease covers the Tigné site – where high-end residences and shopping centres have already been built – and also Manoel Island.
The government is currently in talks to return Manoel Island to public hands, following a massive campaign waged by activists. No details have been divulged about the details of the deal to return the island to the government.