HDFC Bank has picked up over 4.50 lakh sq ft office space spanning across a total seven floors in a commercial tower in Mumbai’s western suburb Andheri east through a long-term lease of over 10 years.
The mega lease deal will see the bank making a total rental payout of over Rs 1,020 crore including other charges through the entire term of the lease to the project developer Runwal Realty. The lease agreement includes a clause to escalate rentals by 15% after every 36 months.
The lease period commenced from January 21 and the pacts provide for a fit-out period of 180 days. The deal concluded through three separate agreements attracting stamp duty of over Rs 116 crore and the same was registered on January 27.
As per the agreement, the starting monthly rentals are set at Rs 6.45 crore for a carpet area of nearly 2.73 lakh sq ft office space in the commercial tower R Square. The bank will also get exclusive access to over 227 car parking slots in the tower, showed the documents accessed through realty data platform CRE Matrix.
It could not be ascertained if the new office space will be used for expansion or relocation of any other office.
Recently, HDFC Bank, as part of its post-merger integration with HDFC, decided to sell several non-core real estate assets in key urban locations including south Mumbai, Kalina, Chandivali and other cities including Kolkata, Mysore, and Bengaluru.
The move is aimed at streamlining its property portfolio and creating additional liquidity to further strengthen its already robust financial position.
As part of this exercise, the entire portfolio including HDFC House in South Mumbai’s Churchgate and residential apartments that were allotted to HDFC’s senior officials earlier are expected to fetch over Rs 3,000 crore.
HDFC House was acquired by the housing finance company from Hindustan Unilever in 2014 for Rs 300 crore. This property, erstwhile Lever House, used to house Hindustan Unilever’s headquarter before it was shifted to Andheri suburb of Mumbai. Prior to this buyout, HDFC used to be a tenant in this commercial building spread over 153,000 sq ft.
The bank has, however, decided to keep Ramon House, the erstwhile headquarter of HDFC out of this monetization exercise.
ET’s email queries to HDFC Bank and Runwal Realty remained unanswered until the time of going to press.
The Indian office property market has experienced remarkable growth in recent years, fuelled by a robust economy and increasing demand from both domestic and international companies.
This growth can be attributed to several factors, including a steady rise in economic activity, the expansion of multinational corporations into India, and the thriving startup ecosystem.
Additionally, the country’s growing prominence as a global outsourcing hub and its large talent pool have further boosted the need for high-quality office spaces in key metropolitan cities and emerging business hubs.
