Navi Mumbai emerging as India’s newest office hub
MUMBAI: NAVI Mumbai is emerging as the most soughtafter destination for corporates and developers to build offices and industrial parks, after established commercial office markets such as Pune, Bengaluru and Gurugram.
Planned infrastructure, proximity to larger cities such as Mumbai and Pune, affordable rentals and availability of land and talent have prompted many companies to set up their back-end offices in the region.
According to data from property consultant JLL India, about 8 million sq. ft of office space across several IT and non-it parks is poised to come up across Navi Mumbai’s 344 sq. km in the next five years. The City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd (Cidco), the government body responsible for developing Navi Mumbai, also plans to develop a corporate park over 120 hectares at Kharghar, which will be twice the size of Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai’s premium central business district. A Cidco spokesperson said the agency has finalized Mumbai-based planning and architecture firm Edifice Consultants Pvt. Ltd to design the Kharghar business park. Currently, Cidco operates two IT parks with a total of 1.6 million sq. ft office space at Vashi and Belapur (in Navi Mumbai). Both these parks are fully occupied.
Real estate consultants estimate that demand for office space would jump further because of the upcoming Navi Mumbai International airport, apart from improved rail and road connectivity.
Gautam Saraf, managing director (Mumbai) of property advisory Cushman and Wakefield, said office space absorption in Navi Mumbai has jumped from 300,000 sq. ft to 1-1.5 million sq. ft in the last five years.
“The growth of this micromarket is also driven by the combination of cost-effective rentals and availability of good human resource,” said Vinod Rohira, managing director, K. Raheja Corp. More than 70 large IT and financial companies, including Accenture, L&T Infotech, Capgemini, UBS and Axis Bank, operate out of these parks.