St George’s Bay Shopping Mall Finally Gets Opening Date: Maltese Shoppers Walk Into 2026
Shopping centre at db’s St George’s Bay project set to open in 2026
The cranes towering over St George’s Bay have become as familiar to locals as the limestone façades of nearby Spinola Palace, but yesterday’s announcement gave the skyline a new deadline: db Group’s long-debated mixed-use complex will welcome its first shoppers in the first quarter of 2026. For a country where “it’ll be ready next year” is practically a national proverb, an actual opening date feels almost revolutionary.
The €300 million project—branded simply “The Bay” in yesterday’s press conference—will deliver 19,000 square metres of retail, restaurant and entertainment space wrapped around a 5-star hotel and 400 luxury apartments. More than 120 units are earmarked for Maltese high-street names and international brands that currently force shoppers onto budget flights to Sicily or Milan. Think Zara Home, but with a sea-view terrace; think Carrefour, but stocking Gozo cheeselets beside French camembert.
Yet the real story is not what will open, but where. St George’s Bay is the unofficial border between Malta’s tourist belt and the villages of St Julian’s and Pembroke where teenagers still race battered Renaults and grandfathers argue over festa band marches. The bay itself was once a sandy cove where British servicemen learned to water-ski in the 1960s; by the 1990s the sand had been replaced by sun-loungers and the smell of reef oil. db’s mall will rise on the same footprint as the old Corinthia St George’s hotel, demolished in 2021, promising to “give the beach back to the people” via a new public lido and 8,000 square metres of landscaped promenade.
Critics remain sceptical. “Another temple to consumption,” snorts Andre Callus from Moviment Graffitti, who led protests in 2018 when the original tower height was scaled back after a public inquiry. “We were told the revised plans would respect the valley’s skyline, yet the shopping roof will still loom over the Carmelite church dome.” Environmentalists warn that traffic modelling predicts an extra 1,200 cars per hour on peak summer afternoons, spilling onto the already-gridlocked Paceville arteries.
db Group CEO Arthur Gauci counters that the development will generate 1,500 permanent jobs, 40 % reserved for Maltese nationals, and points to a €5 million transport fund co-financed with Transport Malta for new pedestrian bridges and a dedicated bus lane. “We’re not importing labourers, we’re hiring our neighbours,” Gauci told reporters, name-checking local cooperatives that will fit-out interiors and supply food courts with craft beer from Birkirkara and honey from Mellieħa apiaries.
For residents like 72-year-old Tereza Cassar, who has lived in a St Julian’s townhouse since 1968, the mall is neither salvation nor sin. “We used to buy school uniforms at the little shop near the church; now my granddaughter orders them online,” she shrugs, adjusting her mask to sip a ħobż biż-żejt on her doorstep. “If the shops mean I can walk to buy decent bread without taking two buses, that’s already an improvement.”
Cultural observers note that Malta’s relationship with shopping centres is complicated. The islands skipped the suburban mall era and leapt straight to open-air high streets, making the air-conditioned precinct still a novelty. The Bay’s architects, Dutch firm OMA, have clearly studied the Maltese preference for alfresco socialising: glazed roofs retract in summer, piazzas host live kanzuna bands, and a 150-seat cinema will screen Maltese-language films every Wednesday—subtitled in English for the expats.
By 2026 Malta will have elected a new government, hosted the European Capital of Culture in Valletta’s shadow, and, if db’s timetable holds, welcomed its first indoor ski slope—yes, a 120-metre artificial piste cooled by solar-powered chillers. Whether the slope becomes a quirky footnote or a symbol of national ambition depends on who you ask. What is certain is that the soundtrack of jackhammers will soon give way to the softer thud of bass speakers and the clink of wine glasses, as another stretch of rocky coastline trades fishermen’s nets for neon.
The Bay is betting that Maltese identity is elastic enough to stretch from village festa to flagship store. Come 2026 we’ll know if the bet paid off—or if the only thing thicker than the concrete will be the nostalgia.
