Real estate major DLF has leased over 2,40,00 sq.ft of office space to an athletic clothing brand, Adidas, in Downtown Gurgaon at a rent of almost Rs 130 per sq.ft per month for nine years.
The project DLF Downtown is at a prime location on National Highway 8. Two towers, Downtown 2 and Downtown 3, are complete and fully leased. Occupation certificate has been received for the two towers and fit-outs are currently on.
Around eight to nine corporate tenants have taken the entire 1.6 mn sq ft in the two towers. Construction work on the third tower, Downtown 4, which is expected to spread across an area of two million sq.ft, will start soon and may take around 2.5 years to complete.
Real estate experts said that while retail has touched pre-COVID-19 levels, office space leasing is also picking up fast. Also, hybrid spaces are here to stay, and some companies are still deciding on how much office space they wish to lease based on how the trend of flexible offices will pan out in the near future.
A report has said that the net absorption for India’s office space for the January-September period stood at a three-year high of 30.3 million sq.ft on the back of strong supply completions with healthy pre-commitments.
Quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) as well, the net absorption for the July-September quarter was up by 11% at 9.86 million sq.ft, according to JLL’s Office Market Update-Q3, 2022.
Delhi NCR and Bengaluru are the two biggest office markets by January-September 2022 gross leasing activity, followed by Mumbai.
DLF’s rental assets are primarily under the DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL), a joint venture between DLF and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC. DLF has a nearly 67 per cent stake in the DCCDL, while GIC has the rest. The annuity portfolio is around 35 million square feet.
In October last year, DLF announced plans to develop a two million sq.ft office building in Gurugram as demand for premium workspace from corporates and co-working operators picked up. The company had also said that it would develop two large malls as well as small shopping centres on a lease model.
DLF is India’s largest real estate company in terms of market capitalisation. It has developed more than 153 real estate projects covering 330 million square feet. The company has 215 mn sq.ft of development potential across the residential and commercial segments and has an annuity portfolio of over 40 mn sq.ft.