Central Business Centre St. Julians is located in one of Malta’s most sought after commercial areas and offers a prime position for retail and office space.
It comprises a combination of commercial and office spaces, targeted at professionals, financial services providers and/or high-net worth individuals. The property also offers retail outlets at ground floor level, opening directly onto Spinola Square.
Central Business Centre St. Julians still has office spaces and retail areas available for rent, including finished and furnished options. Contact us on info@centralbusinesscentres.com for availability and rates.
Central Business Centre St. Julians incorporates the historic Villa Fieres, which has been carefully restored.
It was built around 1890, at a time when St. Julian’s was steadily changing from a fishing hamlet into a fashionable summer resort for the more affluent echelons of society. There are scant references to a religious order using Villa Fieres at one time and British services using it as a billet or mess have been encountered, however nothing could be confirmed at time of writing. What is of great historical value is the name of the villa which is now the only reminder of an ancient toponym by which the area was once called. One of the earliest references to St. Julian’s is found in the texts produced during the pastoral visit of Tommaso Gargallo, Bishop of Malta, to the hamlet in 1601. Reference is made to Il- Qaliet ta’Gnien il-Fieres: “item vivtavit ecclesiam sancti Juliani confessoris prope mare ditto li caletti ta ginen il fieres, 4.xii.1601, Visitatio Patoralis Septima, Visitatio Gargallo, 1588-1602”
The land here was known as ta’ Gnien il-Fieres meaning the Garden of the Knight. Fieres is in fact a very old Maltese word of direct Semitic origin appearing in other toponyms around the Maltese Islands and is also a family nickname. Whilst the place name il-Qaliet survives to this day, Gnien il-Fieres is only remembered in the name of the villa.
The villa is interesting in that although conceived as a detached structure, only treatment of the main facade was given special consideration as far as order, proportion and ornamentation are concerned. The two side elevations which are similar, together with the back, were developed according to the internal layouts and are exceedingly plain as well as functional.
The design of the facade, albeit somewhat restrained, is a quintessentially Maltese neoclassical facade with strong suggestions of British colonial styles found in numerous buildings spanning the late 19th to early 20th centuries in places such as Sliema, Ta’ Xbiex and the Three Villages. The portico is the main feature on the facade and is designed to enjoy sea views from behind and around the settlement of St. Julian’s that was focused around the statue and holy spring of the village’s namesake.
Villa Fieres is currently rented.
