The Portomaso Business Tower ( Maltese : Torri ta' Portomaso , often referred to by locals as simply "Portomaso") is a high-rise office building in Malta . The tower stands in the Portomaso section of St. Julian's , a town just north of Malta's capital city, Valletta . Opened in 2001, the tower is 97.54 metres (320.0 ft) tall, with 23 floors of mixed commercial office space. It became Malta's tallest building upon its completion, and remained so until 2020 when it was surpassed by the Mercury Tower , also in St. Julian's.
23-476: The first six floors of the tower have 465 square metres (5,010 sq ft) of floor space each, while the remaining floors have 295 m (3,180 sq ft) each. The main floor is occupied by a shopping centre while the top floor of the building is a nightclub with balconies affording views of the island nation. The tower is located close to Paceville , which is the main nightlife hub in Malta , and overlooks
46-629: A Maltese building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Paceville Paceville ( PAH -chuh-vil sometimes abbreviated PV ) is a district in St Julian's which is the main nightlife hub in Malta , being heavily populated with nightclubs , bars , strip clubs , pubs and restaurants . It is hence also known as 'Malta's Sin City '. Paceville is located between Spinola Point and Dragonara Point , delimiting Spinola Bay and St. George's Bay respectively. In 2016, it
69-585: A glass banister collapsed in the +1 Club injuring 71 young people, with 2 being critically injured. The incident triggered concerns about children going to Paceville, and both Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil have called for better safety measures. Westin Hotels Westin Hotels & Resorts is an American upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International . As of June 30, 2020 ,
92-491: A new corporate headquarters directly across the street in the Westin Building , which shared a parking garage with the hotel. In 1987, UAL chairman Richard Ferris announced a plan to reorganize UAL as Allegis Corporation, a travel conglomerate based around United Airlines , Hertz Rent a Car , Hilton International Hotels , and Westin and linked by Apollo . This strategy failed, however, and Allegis sold Westin in 1988 to
115-682: The Sir Francis Drake Hotel the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Western added properties in Utah in 1949 and Montana in 1950. Western Hotels executive Edward Carlson convinced Victor "Trader Vic" Bergeron to open his first franchised Trader Vic's location in the chain's Benjamin Franklin Hotel in Seattle in 1949. Originally a small bar named The Outrigger , it was expanded into a full restaurant in 1954 and renamed Trader Vic's in 1960. Due to
138-672: The Stuttgart TV Tower , was the origin of the Space Needle. The chain managed the restaurant atop the Space Needle from its opening until 1982. Western Hotels also managed a floating hotel aboard the ocean liner QSMV Dominion Monarch , docked in Seattle harbor during the fair. The company was renamed Western International Hotels in January 1963, to reflect its growth outside the US. In
161-550: The Dragonara Hotel served other purposes. Originally it was the summer residence of Malta's wealthiest banker, Marquis Emanuel Scicluna, known as ic-Cisk . In times of war, the palace was converted into a military hospital and headquarters of voluntary services. It was redeveloped as a casino, and has now since been redeveloped again in the 1990s by Westin Hotels . At around the same time, a number of bars and clubs started to open in
184-638: The Japanese Aoki Corporation for $ 1.35 billion. Aoki immediately sold the Plaza Hotel to Donald Trump for $ 390 million. In 1994, Aoki agreed to sell Westin to real estate investment firm Starwood Capital Group (parent of Starwood ) and Goldman Sachs at an enormous loss, for $ 561 million, but by the time the sale closed in May 1995, the buyers had negotiated the price down to $ 537 million. In 1998, Starwood assumed full ownership of
207-529: The Portomaso Marina. The surrounding area has many hotels, apartments, bars, restaurants, shops and a tree-lined promenade. The Portomaso Casino, located in the tower, was the venue for the 2012 and 2013 Battle of Malta Poker Tournament . List of tallest buildings in Malta 35°55′19″N 14°29′33″E / 35.92194°N 14.49250°E / 35.92194; 14.49250 This article about
230-589: The US and Canada. Western opened its first hotel in Mexico in 1961. In March of that same year, they opened the first hotel to be both constructed and owned by the chain, The Bayshore Inn in Vancouver. Edward Carlson became President of the chain in 1960 and is credited with bringing the Century 21 Exposition to Seattle in 1962. Carlson's own napkin sketch of a tower with a revolving restaurant on top, inspired by his visit to
253-586: The Westin Brand has 226 properties with 82,608 rooms in multiple countries in addition to 58 hotels with 15,741 rooms in the pipeline. In 1930, Severt W. Thurston and Frank Dupar of Seattle , Washington met unexpectedly during breakfast at the coffee shop of the Commercial Hotel in Yakima , Washington. The competing hotel owners decided to form a management company to handle all their properties, and help deal with
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#1732902308813276-490: The area in view of the increasing number of British servicemen and tourists living in St. Julian's, St. Andrew's and Pembroke . Throughout the years, bars, clubs, discotheques and additional hotels were developed. Nowadays Paceville is full of nightclubs, strip-clubs, bars and restaurants. Nowadays many youths from 13 years old upwards go to Paceville frequently. Fights and violent incidents happen frequently. On 15 November 2015,
299-565: The building of a chapel run by the Augustinian fathers. In December 2000 an adoration chapel known as the Millennium Chapel was inaugurated and two years later an adjoining complex known as WOW ("Wishing Others Well"). This serves the needs of various voluntary groups that offer free community services to callers from all over Malta; the WOW chapel is all day and night. Prior to the construction of
322-632: The chain's 25th anniversary. Western Hotels expanded to Hawaii in 1956, assuming management of the Hawaiian Village Hotel , built by Henry J. Kaiser . Early management developed each property individually. After more than two decades of rapid growth, many of its properties were merged into a single corporate structure in 1958, focusing on bringing the hotels together under a common chain identity. Also in 1958, Western Hotels assumed management of three hotels in Guatemala, its first properties outside
345-528: The chapel in Paceville, the Augustinian order in Malta had already built another chapel as well as a convent in St. George's Bay, dedicated to St Rita . These buildings too are still standing and are located just behind Bay Street . The areas around Paceville after the war were mostly farming communities surrounded with fields, and Paceville itself only had a few restaurants. Unlike today, parking in Paceville
368-512: The company. In 2016, Marriott International acquired Starwood , becoming the world's largest hotel company. Westin was the first hotel chain to introduce guest credit cards (in 1946), 24-hour room service (1969), and personal voice mail in each room (1991). In 1999, Westin began selling the Heavenly Bed mattresses featured in Westin properties, and manufactured by Simmons Bedding Company , to
391-616: The crippling effects of the ongoing Great Depression . The men invited Peter and Adolph Schmidt, who operated five hotels in the Puget Sound area, to join them, and together they established Western Hotels . The chain consisted of 17 properties – 16 in Washington and one in Boise, Idaho . Western Hotels expanded to Vancouver , British Columbia and Portland , Oregon in 1931, to Alaska in 1939, and then to California in 1941, assuming management of
414-545: The mid-1960s, the company became publicly-held, trading its shares on the American Stock Exchange . From November 1, 1965, to 1970, Western International had an agreement with Hotel Corporation of America (today known as Sonesta), under which all 72 hotels of the two chains were jointly marketed as HCA and Western Hotels . From 1968 to 1973, Western International had a similar joint marketing agreement with UK-based Trust House Hotels . In 1970, Western International
437-463: The multi-storey apartments and hotels in the area. Pace's houses were initially rented out to a number of British servicemen who were stationed in the nearby St. Andrew's and St. George's barracks. In the period between the two World Wars, some of these early Paceville residences started to be rented to the Maltese as well. With the arrival of locals in the area of St. Julian's, Dr Pace decided to finance
460-531: The restaurant's success, Bergeron worked with Western Hotels to open Trader Vic's locations in a number of its hotels. In 1955, Western Hotels assumed management of the landmark Olympic Hotel in Seattle. It became the chain's new flagship, and the headquarters and executive offices were moved from the New Washington Hotel to a newly-decorated suite of offices on the 12th floor of the Olympic, in celebration of
483-561: Was acquired by UAL Corporation , with Edward Carlson becoming president and CEO of UAL, Inc and United Airlines. Western International bought New York's iconic Plaza Hotel in 1975 for $ 25 million. On January 5, 1981, the company changed its name again to Westin Hotels (a contraction of the words Western International). The chain's flagship Washington Plaza Hotel in Seattle was the first property to be rebranded, becoming The Westin Hotel on September 1, 1981. That same year, Westin opened
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#1732902308813506-505: Was estimated that Paceville's population stood around 1,939, of which 1,160 were foreigners. Paceville traces its origins in the 1910s and 1920s when prominent lawyer and developer Dr Giuseppe Pace (1890–1971) built a few seaside residences in the area of St. Julian's known as 'il-Qaliet', the small bay between the Dragonara Peninsula and Portomaso . Some of these residencies are still there today, although they are now surrounded by
529-591: Was relatively straightforward as people used to park their cars in fields, one of them being the field on which the St. George's Park hotel was built. Paceville's slow transition into a tourist hub commenced in the 1960s, when two major hotel corporations, the Sheraton and the Hilton , developed five-star hotel properties in the area. The Sheraton opened its hotel in the Dragonara Peninsula. Prior to its transformation,
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