Megaproject: Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) -- General Development News and Discussions

[shivy]

we should update the topic in the supertall section because supertall enthusiast dont really check this section, it will also create a good image for india

[Suncity]

Originally Posted by shivy

we should update the topic in the supertall section because supertall enthusiast dont really check this section, it will also create a good image for india

First let the project start.

[arijeetb]

Originally Posted by Suncity

This project is getting better by the day.

It sure is. The connectivity especially the tunnel speaks of innovation.

On a different note, I am sure the planners have considered this, the fact that Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar lies in a earthquake prone zone and the skyscrapers are in a position be able to withstand tremors of high magnitude.

[IndiansUnite]

There was a feel good video about GIFT on GIFT's website. It basically shows the skyline, describes what the infrastructure, city will be like -

[Hindustani]

way way too long of a video that desered 3 mins. I got bored.

Originally Posted by IndiansUnite

There was a feel good video about GIFT on GIFT's website. It basically shows the skyline, describes what the infrastructure, city will be like -

[Jai]

great find IU!

I'll post better screencaptures later, but here's an interesting one.



Looks like the GIFT in the renders we have, as we suspected, is only the first phase of a much larger CBD with equally sized towers.

[shivy]

http://news.in.msn.com/business/arti...mentid=1245423

Gujarat launching Tec-City in June

Ahmedabad: Work on building the first phase of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), a global financial hub, is expected to start in June, official sources said.

Officials here believe that the conferment of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status is the first key step taken to build a central business district that could eventually rival globally recognised financial centres like Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris and London.

The project, with which Chief Minister Narendra Modi hopes to excel the much talked about international financial hub at Mumbai, is to be built on a sprawling 500-acre campus, about 40 km from Ahmedabad.

The SEZ will house an international education zone, integrated townships, an entertainment zone, hotels and a convention centre besides an international techno park, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) units, shopping malls, stock exchanges and services units.

With the union government's clearance, the SEZ would now be developed over 250 acres and a Domestic Tariff Area (DTA) would be constructed on the rest of the land.

The DTA would function as a domestic financial district with a separate technology park, finance and tech services, an export-oriented undertakings park, a domestic market zone and domestic utilities.

The project would have more than 80 million square feet of built-up area in a highly concentrated and vertical form.

The city would function as an integrated city-centre with extensive residential, commercial and public spaces. To be developed along the Sabarmati River, GIFT would have advanced facilities like inner-city light rail transit systems (LRTS), dedicated and guaranteed power and water facilities and central cooling services.

The first phase of the project, covering 25 million square feet, is scheduled to be operational by mid-2010.

In all, GIFT is expected to have a cluster of 17 high-rise commercial buildings, with the tallest being the signature 80-storey, 400-metre Diamond Tower.

The concept of GIFT was born during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit of 2007 and is being planned by East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI), which is responsible for planning much of Shanghai, and Fairwood Consultants India, one of the country's largest consulting firms.
Yao Wen Lin, ECADI board chairman, has been quoted as saying that GIFT's design would excel Shanghai.

Pre-construction activities like road building in the neighbourhood of the project site have started. Already, 15 million square feet of the floor space of the first phase has been secured by a host of national and international companies.

The project is being implemented by the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Co Ltd, a joint venture between the state-run Gujarat Urban Development Co (GUDC) and Infrastructure Lease and Financial Services (IL&FS).

GIFT is expected to change India's financial skyline creating new benchmarks in investments, exports and job creation. The multi-service SEZ, which is expected to attract Rs.150 billion ($3.8 billion) in investments, is targeting exports worth $1 billion in the first three years beginning 2010, when the first phase of the project will become operational.

Current projections estimate that exports will double to $2 billion by 2015 and to $3 billion by 2020. A total job creation of one million is estimated by 2020.

As of now, five types of businesses have been contemplated - a global BPO centre, operations hub for domestic financial services providing mid-office and back-office related activities, a global IT hub for financial services, a global research and development centre for emerging sectors like pharmaceuticals and a financial centre for selected product markets.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

[thabo]

Does anyone know what the city will be called? I would think it would be called Shahpur, since that's the village it's being built in... but I think it would be more appropriate and kinda cool if it was called Gujarat City...that way it would put entire Gujarat on the world Map...

[IndiansUnite]

Originally Posted by thabo

Does anyone know what the city will be called?

As the project name suggests, it's going to be called GIFT city.

Originally Posted by Jai

The 80-storey Diamond Tower will have a pinnacle at 400m, and the twin towers will have a height of 310m

according to this article, the two other towers will be around 350 m tall -

GIFT will have a total 34 million sq ft of built-up area in high rise buildings with 25 out of the total 319 buildings that will come up there to be over 150 metres in height and 52 highrise buildings above 100 metres, Srinivas said. This includes the signature steel and glass Diamond Tower that will tower at 400 metres and the two flanking gateway towers of around 350 metres.




[TOI-Amd-Feb16]

[harsh1802]

Awesome man............grt news!

[Jai]

Ditto

Hopefully this project will light a fire under the asses of all the other metros whose cbd megaprojects still are more talk than substance (Hyd, Mumb, Blore, NCR)

What a rude shock people in India will have when this starts coming up. Diamond tower in the 1st phase! It'll make all those other molasses-slow supertall proposals look like castles in the friggin sky

great updates IU. I'll update the intl thread later today

[Jai]

Here's the article IU posted in text
GIFT to see Rs 63K cr investment

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad: It’s official now. The Gujarat government’s glitzy reply to Mumbai — the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) —will see a massive infusion of Rs 63,700 crore worth of investments.

What’s more, not only will GIFT gift Ahmedabad a glitzy Manhattan, Dubai, Shanghai, London or Singapore-like skyline with India’s tallest buildings at around 400 metres, it is also set to unlock a whopping Rs 24,500 crore realty opportunity.

Revealing this at the GIHED property show, GUDC managing director K Srinivas said GIFT’s realty component would involve development of commercial, residential and office property as well as hotel projects by developers,

GIFT will have a total 34 million sq ft of built-up area in high rise buildings with 25 out of the total 319 buildings that will come up there to be over 150 metres in height and 52 highrise buildings above 100 metres, Srinivas said. This includes the signature steel and glass Diamond Tower that will tower at 400 metres and the two flanking gateway towers of around 350 metres. The project will also see investments worth Rs 29,900 crore being pumped into utilities like power, waste management system, district cooling system.

The project, being developed by the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Ltd, a joint venture between the state run Gujarat Urban Development Company (GUDC) and Infrastructure Lease and Financial Services (IL&FS), will involve investments worth Rs 4,600 crore in core infrastructure like roads, drainage, land and around Rs 4,700 crore investment in other infrastructure like internal transport and water supply and distribution.

One thing I found interesting in the article is that the managing director said that "GIFT's realty component would involve the developmet of commerical, residential and office property as well as hotel projects by developers"

Does that imply that hotel (and possibly the others as well? - its hard to tell by the wording) developments would be separate from the master plan? I.e. individual developers would have a free hand in interdependently designing their own particular building projects within the GIFT city?

IF so, this is awesome news. Contrasting architecture is actually complementary. A variety of styles and buildings will break the "sim city" look that planned megaprojects have the world over. The randomness of 'organic' skyscraper development, imho, seperates a true CBD from just a large massively designed single project.

[Nelaturi]

Great stuff, Jai. I am happy for Gujarat and Ahmedabad that they have such a visionary government. Have never been to Gujarat but should plan something after 2010.

[..devil..]

Originally Posted by Suncity

First let the project start.

no no
they should have a section up there in supertalls called 'dream castles'.
it will be the place where we can all gather and display "renders" and "you tubes" of all the up and coming CBD's manhatten's etc even though they are in the conceptual phase. And we can place bets in there too. i mean if we are building dream castles we might as well make it interesting. right.

[Jai]

Only if we have a section called 'black holes' where posters are encouraged to rant and rave and generally gleefully indulge in sarcasm and the vitriol of unrelenting, irrational negitivsm. Hell, I even got a shortlist of some SSC India members who'd make find, upstanding moderators there that I can happily forward to Jan


Anyway, here are the screencaptures I promised earlier. They all seem to be of the first phase of the project, which will see the building of a highrise waterfront, waterfront gate, canal, convention and rec center, IT offices, residential and mass infrastructure. What they don't show is the Diamond Tower, which will also be constructed in the first phase.

In fact, the renderings in the video look rather less developed than the renderings on the website and in adversisements. That and the lack of the Diamond Tower suggests that the video was created before the entire project design was completed.




















































Cheers,
Jai

[Jai]

Originally Posted by shivy

we should update the topic in the supertall section because supertall enthusiast dont really check this section, it will also create a good image for india

Hi

I updated the thread with the latest news

[mihir1310]

good ..but as many ppl have already asked .will this dream materialize?? yes NM is a highly efficient person , but still such a megaproject in india has never been easy to acheive

[Jai]

Check this out! Due to the success of GIFT, planning for a 'GIFT II', a 500 acre CBD as big as the first, is underway!

Also, for all those detractors out there, seems that the entire friggin project -- all phases -- will be sold out even before the first phase is completed! Talk about pent up demand....

Positive response to GIFT city sows seeds for GIFT II

March 15th, 2008 - 12:59 am ICT by admin - Email This Post Email This Post

By P.S. Anantharaman

Ahmedabad, March 14 (IANS) Encouraged by the positive response its $6 billion (Rs.240 billion) high-tech city project received from various quarters, Gujarat International Finance Tech-city (GIFT) company is now planning to construct another global city in the state. “It seems the entire 25 million sq feet of the built-up area of the GIFT city will be signed up before the completion of the first phase in 2010. The total built-up area of the project is pegged at 75 million sq feet,” company chairman Sudhir Mankad told IANS.

According to Mankad, GIFT II, which would come up on 500 acres of land, would be as big as the first one.

The GIFT city, which is being built according to global standards, is coming up between Naroda in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, 12 km from the Ahmedabad international airport.

Companies like State Bank of India (SBI), Kotak Mahindra Ltd, Punj Lloyd Ltd and also a number of overseas firms have booked space in the upcoming city. The total space booked exceeds 40 million sq feet, he said.

Mankad said many global mutual and pension fund companies have shown interest in setting up their shops in GIFT city. A bourse in Chicago in the US could be another participant.

According to Mankad, the marketing strategy of GIFT has three key elements. First, it will provide a base in the state for investors. Second, it seeks to make Gujarat a destination for financial tourism and a base to export financial services to non-resident Indias (NRI) and overseas clients/institutions. Finally, it will focus on technology infrastructure for financial markets and technology services providers.

GIFT would be equipped with an efficient transportation system besides possessing a fully integrated technology centre. As a financial hub, the city will target international financial services, which include offshore banking units, international financial services firms and back office processing centres.

A 12 km dedicated expressway to the international airport is being built as part of the project.

In the domestic segment, the city plans to work in tandem with financial institutions, capital and commodity market players, investor organisations and associates and regulatory bodies.

D.S. Anjaria, one of the directors of the GIFT, said out of the total 500 acres of land, 250 acres will be allotted to a multi-services special economic zones (SEZs) for which the centre has accorded approval.

Multi-services SEZs would comprise processing and non-processing areas.

GIFT could become a centralised hub for mid and back office related activities for domestic financial services company, said Anjaria.

Gujarat’s Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala, presenting the state budget, said when GIFT city becomes operational, it would provide direct employment to half a million professionals and indirect employment to an equal number in allied support services.

[Jai]

By the way, here are some more renderings from their website I overlooked before:

Here is a perspective of the skyline, with the twin Gateway Towers and part of the Diamond Tower visible:


I did my best to clear it up. You can tell the facades of the other buildings will definitely be interesting:



A poster showcasing the Diamond Tower:


Again, I tried to clear it up. Gives a better view on the unique cut-out design:



Also by the way, they also uploaded a new presentation on their website, replacing the old one. I recommend checking it out. Not a whole lot of new information, but presented much better.

It also has a couple new and better renderings of some of the landmark buildings of the project:













And some handy-dandy project timetables:







Cheers,
Jai

[Hindustani]

Jai

Great find. however. The only 2 impressive towers are the DIAMOND TOWER & round cylindrical supertall titled with "transportation hub". Other are too ordinary & blockish. I hope this is a working design like Lanco hills initials. They were too blockish & dull including the signature tower but 1 yr later, things totally changed drastically. I hope this goes the same way.