DLF expects steady and sustainable growth with the potential to develop 30-35 million sq ft of commercial space, as the leading realty player hopes that the commercial real estate market in India will see a stronger recovery driven by various favourable factors.

“In the commercial real estate space, green shoots are visible with improved sentiments. We expect pent-up demand to come slowly and return to office by employees will be far quicker than we had anticipated. Also, India’s ability to provide commercial real estate of the global standard at the fraction of the cost will continue to attract global firms. This market still gives leases at $1.2 or $1.3 per sq ft which is unheard of in the world and of course at global quality,” Sriram Khattar, Managing Director, DLF Rental, told BusinessLine here. 

“In places like DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, if there are 1.5 lakh workers, normally 1.2-1.25 lakh would come to work, while the rest would be travelling, unwell, or busy with marriages etc. Now, 30-35 per cent of people are already back and we expect 50-60 per cent of workers to be back by April/May,” he said.

Likewise, there are about 65,000 employees at DLF’s IT park at Manapakkam in Chennai. About one-fourth of the employees are already back. The pace of coming back to the office is faster in places like Gurugram and Chennai.

Khattar pointed out that during the pandemic India had proved its IT/digital strength in delivering services. Also, India’s largest English-speaking and tech-savvy people of less than 30 years of age will lure global companies to set up their back offices.

While the company expects demand for commercial space to go up gradually, emerging categories such as new-age IT firms (Google, Facebook, Amazon), data centres, Unicorns, Flexi spaces, among others, are expected to drive incremental demand in the office space segment. “Each new segment will be small, but they will boost the aggregate demand for office space. Overall, I see demand coming back very strongly in the commercial space,” said Khattar.

With the approved or licensed land banks the company possesses across cities, it has further potential to develop 30-35 million sq ft of commercial space. A majority of this, close to 50 per cent, would be in the NCR.

We have high-quality and well-located land parcels where all approvals are in place for further development of commercial space, he said.

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