Taurus Investment Holdings, developers of the ₹1,500-crore Taurus Downtown Technopark here, has decided to scale up the project by 40 per cent to a total built-up area of five million square feet.

This is a mixed-use, IT office and social infrastructure project planned in Technopark Phase III, marketing initiatives of which have generated ‘excellent response’ from potential IT/BPM and retail tenants.

Office blocks According to the revised plan, 26 lakh sq ft will come up within the IT SEZ, and 24 lakh sq ft of office space and social infrastructure in the non-SEZ area, said Ajay Prasad, Country Managing Director of Taurus India.

The project will have retail space, entertainment options, two hotels, and an innovation zone with modern plug-and-play office facility for startups and small businesses in the non-SEZ area.

In the first phase, three office blocks with a total built-up area of 19 lakh sq ft and 15 lakh sq ft of IT support facilities, including a retail mall and a 150 key hotel, will be built. In the second phase, 11 lakh square feet of office and a second hotel will be added, Prasad said.

Good response “Coming up in 19.73 acres of land, the Taurus Downtown Technopark Project is designed to create a world-class business infrastructure with the highest achievable floor area ratio. Excellent response from multinational and domestic tenants, both office and retail, has encouraged us to significantly scale up the project, with nearly 40% more area than originally envisaged,” he added.

Project design and other key aspects of preparatory work are in the final stages, and the project is now awaiting the signing of land lease agreement between Taurus and Technopark. Preliminary development work is expected to begin by March 2016. The first phase of the project is expected to be commissioned by 2018.

Job opportunities On completion, more than 25,000 direct employment opportunities are expected to be added, much of it by marquee US and European tenants.

According to Prasad, Downtown Technopark will feature Kerala’s single largest IT building with over 25 lakh sq ft of built-up area across two phases.

The office component will be branded as Taurus World Technology Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

Infra requirements Better transport infrastructure including the Metro and other mass transit facilities around Technopark are required to handle the expected traffic being generated by the project and other developments in the vicinity.

The government has to invest heavily in this to ensure that the city does not go the way of Bengaluru where firms are now reconsidering investments due to heavy traffic congestion.

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