Office space boom in Chennai
Chennai is all set to surpass Mumbai and the National Capital Region, NCR, in terms of the amount of office space that will be leased out this year. According to real estate consultants, this will put Chennai on number two on the list behind Bangalore. CNBC-TV18 reports that the trend is expected to bring in as many as three lakh new employees into the city in the next three years.
There are at least 10 ‘parks’, which are coming up in the outskirts of Chennai over the next two years. These buildings are supposed to provide much-needed office space in the city. By the end of it, an estimated 35-lakh sq ft of commercial space is expected to hit the market. About 90% of this is expected to be taken by the IT industry.
Ramesh Nair, associate director, Jones Lang Lasalle, a premier real-estate agency, told CNBC-TV18, "Today Bangalore is the clear favourite in terms of commercial office space leasing activity at 6 million square feet in 2004. NCR and Mumbai are marginally higher than Chennai. But we expect Chennai to overtake these two cities this year."
Chennai’s real estate is driven by the presence of a clutch of international organisations that have set up, or are soon to set up shop in the city. From seven lakh square feet leased in 2002 to an estimated 25 lakh this year, Chennai has seen explosive growth in demand for commercial space in the last two years. Hardly surprising, considering that organisations like the World Bank and Nokia have recently chosen Chennai as the site for their India operations.
Speaking on the choice of Chennai as a possible destination, Jukka Lehtela, director, India operations, Nokia India told CNBC-TV18, "very important, not maybe valid in all parts of India is that they have very good colleges and universities from where we can get a lot of good labour as well."
Apart from the ready source of talent, companies say that Chennai's better roads and airport is a major advantage too.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/backends/News/frontend/news_detail.php?autono=166123
There are at least 10 ‘parks’, which are coming up in the outskirts of Chennai over the next two years. These buildings are supposed to provide much-needed office space in the city. By the end of it, an estimated 35-lakh sq ft of commercial space is expected to hit the market. About 90% of this is expected to be taken by the IT industry.
Ramesh Nair, associate director, Jones Lang Lasalle, a premier real-estate agency, told CNBC-TV18, "Today Bangalore is the clear favourite in terms of commercial office space leasing activity at 6 million square feet in 2004. NCR and Mumbai are marginally higher than Chennai. But we expect Chennai to overtake these two cities this year."
Chennai’s real estate is driven by the presence of a clutch of international organisations that have set up, or are soon to set up shop in the city. From seven lakh square feet leased in 2002 to an estimated 25 lakh this year, Chennai has seen explosive growth in demand for commercial space in the last two years. Hardly surprising, considering that organisations like the World Bank and Nokia have recently chosen Chennai as the site for their India operations.
Speaking on the choice of Chennai as a possible destination, Jukka Lehtela, director, India operations, Nokia India told CNBC-TV18, "very important, not maybe valid in all parts of India is that they have very good colleges and universities from where we can get a lot of good labour as well."
Apart from the ready source of talent, companies say that Chennai's better roads and airport is a major advantage too.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/backends/News/frontend/news_detail.php?autono=166123
