SETTING THE FRINGES ON FIRE

Growth of manufacturing, IT and automobile industries has led to major development in Chennai’s suburbs

The spurt in manufacturing that transformed India with its SEZS and IT parks in the early 2000s was most visible in Chennai. The city’s centre of gravity started shifting outside as global giants such as Nokia, Daimler, Renault-Nissan, BMW, Toyota and Komatsu set up shop besides Indian companies such as Tech Mahindra and Infosys. This explosion of IT and manufacturing industry created a vast urban area now called southern suburbs, spread along the Great Southern Trunk ( GST) Road, the Old Mahabalipuram Road ( OMR) and the East Coast Road ( ECR). Pallikaranai, Medavakkam, Chrompet, Tambaram, Thoraipakkam and Sholinganallur are a few of the key places in the region.

Major national and local builders are developing townships here. VIT and Tagore Engineering College are nearby, so are the Police Academy and the Delhi Public School. The area also houses the Chettinad Hospital.

Park Avenue and Boulevard are the two projects by Vijay Shanthi Builders in the area, with Boulevard to be launched in a month. On offer are two- or three-bedroom flats, at the average price of Rs 4,000 per sq ft. The developer expects this to go up to Rs 7,500 in the next three years.

OMR maintains its importance due to the presence of a number of reputed IT companies while Medavakkam is the fastest developing housing corridor due to its proximity to the commercial and residential hub Velarchery. Developer Navin’s has two projects in this area, Springfield and Starwood Towers, which has a commercial block and a club house with 960 units of flats.

In Medavakkam, the average price is Rs 4,500 per sq ft, which is expected to rise to Rs 4,700 next year. Another area getting popular with home buyers is Porur, which is being seen as the next IT hub. Property rates here range from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per sq ft. Navin’s has two projects here—Eden Park, which is ready to be handed over, and Hill View Avenue, which is under construction.

Despite uneven development such as bad roads and missing footpaths in some places, the aspirational southern suburbs are growing in all directions, and upward. T. Chitty Babu of Akshaya claims its super premium project ABOV in the OMR stretch would be the tallest building in Tamil Nadu.