A new website launched to coincide 100 years since the inauguration of the Chalet teased a striking future for the defunct former Sliema venue.

The website envisions underwater restaurant and club underneath Chalet, where people can watch mermaid performers swim among fish on the other side of the glass.

Similar concepts exist in Norway, the Maldives, and Dubai, but it doesn’t look like it is coming to Malta anytime soon.

Carmelo Stivala Group was the only company to submit a bid for the redevelopment of the Chalet site, following a tender issued by the Government-owned company Malta Strategic Partnership Projects Ltd.

Carmelo Stivala Group CEO Michael Stivala

An evaluation committee recommended the bid for refusal, but this was reversed by the Public Contracts Appeal Board last year following an appeal by the Group. A newly reinstated evaluation committee will now reassess the bid before the submission of any planning permits.

However, Carmelo Stivala Group CEO Michael Stivala tells WhosWho.mt that he is certainly not planning an underwater restaurant at the Chalet site.

“I was informed of this website but I have no idea who is behind it; it could even be a hoax,” he says.

Instead, his vision for the Chalet involves an overground restaurant with the ground floor rebuilt in a style resembling what it used to look like in the 1920s.

The Chalet was a prime entertainment venue that used to host weddings, events and social events before it was damaged in World War Two and fell into disrepair. The structure has since been completely demolished and only the concrete base now remains.