A New Benchmark

Setting a new record in real estate transaction, A Mohan Raju,Managing Director, Kalyani Developers, recently bagged a project for developing 1.6 million sq ft of office space in Bengaluru for US banking group Goldman Sachs. This is supposedly the biggest recorded commercial property deal to date in India. Kalyani will construct a three-building campus for the bank on a 14 acre site. The new office, expected to be ready in five years, will house about 4,000 back-end office staff that work for Goldman from six premises in the city now. A deal for office space of this size suggests a major ramp-up by Goldman in India in the years ahead, with commercial property market experts estimating that 1 million sq ft of space can seat around 10,000 people. The transaction is welcome news for the commercial property business, which has been plagued by overcapacity and hit hard by the economic slowdown.