The Hindu Business Line : Horizon ties up to build `Market City'

Corporate - Alliances & Joint Ventures
Industry & Economy - Real Estate & Construction
States - Maharashtra
Horizon ties up to build `Market City'

Our Bureau

Pune May 24 Horizon Realty LLC, a retail focussed fund promoted by the Future Group and builders City Group signed a strategic joint venture on Thursday to build a mixed use `Market City' involving 2.85 million sq ft of retail, commercial and hotel space in the Rs 8,000-crore Amanora Township at Hadapsar.

A special purpose vehicle called City Realty has been formed for the implementation of the Rs 850-crore project. Each of the two joint venture partners will invest Rs 180 crore, plus an additional Rs 50 crore for construction, while the remaining funds will be raised through debt, Mr Aniruddha Deshpande, Managing Director, City Corporation Ltd, said.

Horizon is one of two funds for which the advisor is Kshitij Investment Advisory Co Ltd (KIACL), the company that manages the real estate business of the Future Group. It has a corpus of $350 million, and is building eight such market cities in the country.

Mr Shishir Baijal, Managing Director and CEO, KIACL disclosed that the Amanora Market City would have five components; a retail area with a large `home component', a food court oriented hyper mart, an entertainment area with nine cinema halls, a cash and carry district and three commercial towers to house the offices.

Features

Amongst the unique features would be a 1,00,000 sq ft Automart, where several auto companies could showcase their products under one roof, and a special rodeo-drive type of high street, where premium retail outlets and outdoor cafes would make for a novel shopping experience, Mr Baijal said.

The market city spread over 29 acres of the 400-acre township will have 1.8 million sq ft of retail space designed by New Zealand based Walker Architects, 7,50,000 sq ft of commercial space and a 300-room hotel and convention centre on 3,00,000 sq ft. Mr Baijal said the construction for the project would begin by the end of the year and was expected to be ready for launch by 2010.