Alliance Real Estate lands in Gżira: can a new branch balance boom with belonging?

Alliance Real Estate opens Gżira hub, betting on the town’s next chapter
By Hot Malta Staff | Wednesday, 14 June 2023

The crane-dotted skyline of Gżira welcomed a different kind of addition this morning: a sleek, glass-fronted branch of Alliance Real Estate, the 11th office for the Maltese-owned agency since it set up shop in 2007. While ribbon-cuttings are usually PR fluff, this one felt like a statement about where Malta itself is heading.

Mayas Abdilla, Alliance’s general manager, told Hot Malta that the choice of Gżira was “deliberate, not default”.
“Everyone talks about Sliema and St Julian’s, but Gżira is the hinge—literally,” she said, pointing to the panoramic windows that frame Manoel Island, Ta’ Xbiex yacht marina and, on the horizon, Valletta’s fortifications. “You can walk to three local councils in under ten minutes. That density of life, work and tourism is unmatched.”

Local context: from red-light to red-hot
Only a decade ago, Gżira’s name still carried the whiff of seedier times—karaoke bars, slot-machine parlours and hourly-rate hotels. Then the foreign students arrived, followed by gaming companies, co-working spaces and speciality coffee roasters. Property prices have doubled since 2015; a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the yacht marina now fetches €600,000, up from €320,000 eight years ago.

Yet the town has clung to its eclectic soul: old bakeries selling ħobż biż-żejt at €1.50 sit next to vegan sushi counters; elderly men feed pigeons beneath murals of Bitcoin logos. Alliance’s new branch, carved out of a 1960s corner townhouse on Triq ix-Xatt, tries to mirror that blend. Original patterned tiles were retained; the limestone façade was cleaned with bicarbonate paste instead of harsh chemicals. Even the agency’s signature teal signage is dimmer here, “so we don’t out-shout the baroque balconies,” Abdilla laughed.

Cultural significance: the “language of thresholds”
Notary and cultural anthropologist Dr Maria Grech-Mifsud, who grew up two streets away, sees the opening as part of a wider Maltese pattern she calls “the language of thresholds”.
“Maltese towns are liminal spaces—coastal settlements that were entry points for Phoenicians, Normans, the Knights, the British,” she explained. “Gżira, squeezed between sea and suburb, keeps re-inventing that role. A real-estate agency may sound corporate, but it’s also a storyteller: it translates bricks into belonging.”

Alliance seems aware of the narrative burden. The branch will host monthly “Kafè mal-Komunitarju” sessions—free Italian-for-beginners classes, tenants’ rights Q&As, even meet-the-candidate nights before next year’s local council elections. The first event, scheduled for 28 June, will screen the 1979 classic “Guardian Angel”, shot in Gżira, followed by a discussion on preserving Maltese cinema.

Community impact: cheers, jeers and everything between
Reactions on the Facebook group “Gżira Residents & Friends” were split within minutes of the announcement. One user posted a GIF of dancing champagne bottles; another warned of “another tsunami of Airbnbs”.

Deputy Mayor Jeremy Cardona replied on the same thread, stressing that the council’s 2022 moratorium on new short-let licences in residential blocks remains in force. “Alliance informed us they will prioritise long lets and sales to first-time Maltese buyers,” Cardona wrote. “We’ll hold them to it.”

Data backs up some fears. A study by the University of Malta last year found that 34 % of Gżira dwellings are now used for short tourism lets, the highest ratio nationally. Yet the same research noted that long-term rental stock grew 12 % when agencies offered landlord-management packages, suggesting professional players can also add stability.

Alliance claims its internal stats show 62 % of its 2022 transactions involved Maltese purchasers under 35. Abdilla says the Gżira team—six full-time agents, all bilingual—will keep a “local-first” ledger. “If we don’t, the town will lose the very mix that makes property here valuable,” she admitted, refreshingly blunt.

What next?
The agency plans to partner with local NGOs to repaint the old kiosks on Il-Menqa waterfront and fund a summer reading programme at the public library. Small gestures, perhaps, but in a country where development often feels done to communities rather than with them, they land as olive branches.

As the morning sun glinted off the yacht masts, an elderly Gżira resident, 81-year-old Ġemma Vella, leant on her rollator and peered into the new office. “My grandson says I should sell the townhouse and cash in,” she confided. “But where would I buy? Marsa? No, I came to see if these young people can help me rent the spare room instead—someone nice, maybe a student who’ll drink tea with me.”

If Alliance can matchmake Ġemma with a tenant who sticks around longer than a lease cycle, it will have done more than sell square metres; it will have helped write Gżira’s next chapter in a language everyone on the street still understands—home.