Nagpur Projects Thread

KSL and Industries Ltd has ventured into the realty business and is developing an integrated township project - Empress City. The project will be spread over 25 acres in Nagpur.

The facility is likely to comprise a 3.5-lakh sq feet information technology park, a 300-room five star hotel, a shopping mall, multiplexes and 800 luxury residential apartments. There will also be facilities such as swimming pools, health clubs, jogging parks, playgrounds, indoor games complex, community halls, temple, emergency post, telecommunication facilities and video phones.

Click to expand...

Textile major KSL and Industries said that it was in talks with four or five major hotel groups to run the 400-room five-star hotel which will form part of the Empress City, the upcoming integrated township project which KSL is developing over a 25-acre land in the heart of the city.

The promoters have already spent Rs 100 crore in purchasing and developing the property, said S P Tayal, the chairman of KSL and Industries. He added that by December 2007, the project would be completed and by then, the company would have invested over Rs 400 crore.

Empress City will have an IT Park, a five-star hotel, the city’s largest shopping mall, multiplexes and around 600 luxury residential apartments.

The foundation work of the proposed 10-storey IT Park, shopping mall and residential apartments have already begun. Bookings for the apartments will begin in January, while the IT Park and shopping malls are being marketed by an independent sales agency.

There will be facilities like a club house, swimming pools, health club, jogging park, playgrounds, indoor games complex, community halls, etc in the complex. A round-the-clock power backup service is also being arranged.

Around 10-15 towers, 10-storeyed each, will be constructed as residential apartments. All the buildings in the project, which include apartments will be fully air-conditioned. In an area of 1 lakh sq ft, basement-parking and landscaping will be done. The promoters have roped in the best names in the construction industry for the project.

The township has been designed by noted architect Hafeez Contractor.

The structural consultants of the project are Y S Sane & Associates, while the contractors for the same are Shapoorji Pallonji & Company. Singapore-based Site Concepts, will be the landscaping consultants, while Trammel Crow Meghraj will be the property management consultants.

Click to expand...

collateral said:

A bit disappointing we are only looking at a skyline of only 10-15 stories. But maybe this 400 room hotel may be the one serious high-rise (bearing in mind the 35 story new Four Seasons in Mumbai is gonna have 180-190 rooms)???

The unofficial rendering of Empress City looks cool, check out the KSL web site:

http://www.kslindustries.com/real.htm

Click to expand...

collateral said:

Why are you so sceptical?

What city is this then?....hmmm

I never claimed it was an official rendering, just an insight as to what we should expect. I would probably agree with you had i not seen a very similar design on an article in early August.

In order for KSL to make the most out of this land they have to go vertical as 25-acres is not a huge space. They've got a big name team on this with a good track record for delivering serious projects!!!

Be positive.

Click to expand...

The Kamat group of hotels is planning to set up a hospitality management institute in the next three-four months, a hotel management and tourism training institute over the next two months and an ‘enviroscope’ museum, which will feature products made out of waste.

Besides, the group plans to construct a budget hotel and a five-star hotel, under the brand name ‘Orchid’, over the next 16 months.

The five-star property would come up near the airport. Both the budget hotel and the five-star property would operate like other Kamat group hotels, on a unique ‘zero garbage’ concept, he said.

Kamat’s Orchid is at the forefront of many environmental activities. Every year, Kamat himself joins around 200 students from Mumbai-based schools to clean beaches after ‘Ganesh Visarjan’. A no-plastic drive is held twice a year in the metro; last year, the team collected 1,500 kg of plastic.

Kamat will also launch TEAM (Tree Environment And Me) in Nagpur with the objective of encouraging people to plant saplings and look after trees. “We have a target of one lakh trees over the next two years,” he said.

The group is also planning to build another Ecotel in Raipur by the end of 2006. It is also launching the first ‘Raincentre’ in Mumbai at its Lotus Suites in the hotel for rainwater harvesting.

Click to expand...

Once relegated to second-grade status after ceasing to be the capital of the erstwhile CP and Berar Province, Nagpur is on the upswing.

What started with a controversial 1.5-km modern flyover in the busiest Sitabuldi area of the city some ten years ago, is now fast shaping up into a hurricane of development.

At the centre of it all is a Rs 3,000-crore Multimodal International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) that will feed a Rs 10,000-crore Special Economic Zone. IT leaders like Satyam, L&T Infocity and Shapoorji Pallonji have already bought over 250 acres in MIHAN’s proposed SEZ. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and General Electric teams too are visiting soon.

About 1,500 of the required 3,500 hectares have already been acquired for MIHAN. An international school is coming up soon, an ultramodern airport with a capacity to handle 10,000 people has been envisaged and a 100-MW captive power plant is set to come up.

But the real booster came recently when Boeing chose it for its proposed about Rs 500-crore Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul (MRO) facility. For a city that carried the tag of backwardness for many decades, Boeing meant a giant leap, literally.

Already, Container Corporation of India’s inland depot at Nagpur is the fastest -rowing inland port in the country.

‘‘After the Boeing announcement, I have been flooded with inquiries from all over the world. TNT, Europe’s transport giant, have approached us to explore the possibility of setting up their base,’’ says Sinha.

What goes in Nagpur’s favour is its central location—over 400 international flights pass daily over its skies, making Nagpur Air Traffic Control (ATR) the busiest in the country. Moreover, it is at the confluence of two major National Highways Kanyakumari-Varanasi (no 7) and Hawrah-Dhule (no 6) and all east-west and north-south railway lines.

Click to expand...

Hospitality majors such as Taj, Oberoi and Orchid have begun preliminary investigative surveys here wanting to assess the tourist and business potential of the region.

They have contacted the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) while examining the city's infrastructure and the cost of locating star properties or budget hotels within the city municipal limits.

This foray comes on the heels of hotels here reporting a good summer rush and launching various schemes for retaining customers.

Food festivals, happy hours and cuts on room tariff for regular customers are in vogue. There are only five prime contenders for the top slot in the hotel industry of this city of near 2.5 million.

ITC Ltd, which has a full-fledged double storied branch office here for its ITD products, Life Style, food and agro divisions, is also learnt to have enquired about purchasing some existing properties.

Nagpur Municipal Commissioner Lokesh Chandra confirmed that several chains including Taj, Oberoi and Orchid had made preliminary enquiries about land available with the municipal corporation for setting up their respective properties.

Piramyd Retail, the Piramal Group promoted company, plans to open about 10 TruMart stores in the region.

Click to expand...

The Mumbai-based Kamat Group is planning to start three projects in Nagpur at an investment of Rs 130 crore.

The group, known for its chain of ecotel properties under Orchid brand, will come up with a catering college, a three star hotel and a convention centre.

“Land for the projects has already been acquired. The catering college will be located near Chhatrapati Square while the hotel and convention centre will be near the Airport on Wardha Road,” said Virendra Khare, whose architecture firm has bagged the contract for the catering college and three star hotel.

The catering college will cover an area of 1.5 acre and be completed in phases. Nagpur has two other institutes offering courses in catering technology. These are the Tirpude College of Catering and the Tuli Group’s Catering College.

Kamat’s catering college will also have a “trial hotel” and two museums. One will be on the theme of ‘enviroscope’ – displaying products made out of waste – while the other will feature regular antiques.

The convention centre is the most ambitious project of the group and would cover an area of 50 acre. The Group plans to invest Rs 100 crore in this project alone. The convention centre is being planned on the lines of the group’s South Africa centre.

Apart from the normal facilities of a usual convention centre, it will also feature eco-friendly five star facilities.

The two projects are expected to take over an year to be completed. The three star hotel will take another three to four years.

Click to expand...

The proposal of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to construct shopping malls on surplus lands has received a tremendous response with leading developers submitting their bids.

The civic body has earmarked six places in the city for setting up shopping malls, hotels and restaurants.

NMC has set aside over 63,090 square metres of land for the purpose at places like Netaji market, Sitabuldi (9,393.4 sq m), water works office, Gokulpeth market, West High Court road (9,304 sq m), Danaganj, Old Bhandara road (16,875 sq m), Jaripatka bus stop (5,983 sq m) and Pachpaoli and Kamal Talkies square (17,244 sq m).

As per the plan, the corporation will not be spending any amount on the construction of its new offices, but will still earn a substantial amount as rent for the next two decades. The malls will be constructed on a built-operate-and-transfer (BOT) basis at an estimated cost of Rs 203 crore.

Since the Netaji Market Mall will be located in a crowded locality, the permitted floor to space index (FSI) is 1.25. For the remaining five malls, the FSI is 2.5. Six firms have evinced interest in the Netaji Market mall, ten in water works office, 11 in Gokulpeth, nine in Danaganj, and seven each in Jaripatka and Pachpaoli.

While the corporation has laid a broad criteria for the malls, builders can construct hotels, restaurants or multiplexes as long as they do not violate the development control rules (DCR).

A number of IT and ITeS companies, which had evinced interest in setting up their base here had complained about lack of adequate infrastructure in terms of shopping areas and the hospitality sector in the city. International agencies, which surveyed the city had also made similar remarks. The corporation expects this to be a thing of the past soon.

Click to expand...

Nagpur may enter the big league if the plans of Satish Chaturvedi, Maharashtra textile minister and guardian minister for Nagpur district, fructify.

At a meeting organised here recently by the Nag-Vidarbha Chamber of Commerce (NVCC), the apex body of traders in the region, the minister spelt out his plans for making Nagpur one of the top three cities in the country.

These include gifting the city a sky-rail, several flyovers, a hospital on the lines of AIIMS, five-star hotel, and a new road circumventing the city.

According to him, the city would get the country’s first sky railway by 2009. A Swiss company has evinced interest in setting up the system. The company has proposed that it would build the suspended rail system and operate it till it recoups its investment. Thus, the cost to the state would be negligible. The rail line will connect Pardi Naka on one extreme of the city to the Ordnance Factory area on the other side and the company would levy a charge of Re 1 per kilometre for ferrying passengers. After 9 pm, it could be used for ferrying goods, Chaturvedi said.

Before that, work on the new flyover above and parallel to Central Avenue would begin. The bridge would start from Vaishno Devi Square, in the busy business district of the city, and end at the road touching the railway station, he said. It is expected that tenders for the project would be floated within a couple of months. With this, those living at the eastern tip of the city would be able to reach the railway station within five to seven minutes against the 45 to 60 minutes it now takes, he added.

The Itwari flyover, which was initially planned as a two-laned one, will now be a four-laned bridge and the state government has agreed to provide Rs 10 crore for the project instead of Rs 3 crore allotted earlier. An extra Rs 5 crore has also been secured for the Maskasath bridge. Work has also been expedited to build the cotton market overbridge, said Chaturvedi.

An outer ring-road for the city is also being planned. The old ring-road no longer serves the purpose of a circumventing road, as the city has expanded and many areas it touches fall within the municipal limits, he added.

A plan has also been chalked out to develop an area 25 km away from the zero milestone where residential colonies or other complexes can come up in plots spread over 100 acres. This can be done in association with the private sector, he said.

Textile major, Indo Rama Synthetics (India) Limited, has expressed interest to develop a multi-specialty hospital in the city. The company may be allotted vacant land near Medical College’s TB Ward for the same. In case Indo Rama is not in a position to build the hospital, Reliance is ready to take over the job. The Centre will also be pressed to allot around Rs 400 crore for setting up a referral hospital in the city, which will be akin to AIIMS, he said. Indo Rama officials, when contacted, denied comment.

A rail overbridge has also been planned near Mankapur on the road reaching pilgrims to the Koradi Temple. The minister felt that the city’s development would remain incomplete without a five-star hotel. If Nagpur wants to match global standards and be counted in the top three cities of the country, it should have a five-star property. And if there is none, the government will ensure that a five star property comes up here.

Chaturvedi announced that he would offer any government land for setting up the hotel and urge leaders in the hospitality sector such as the Taj Group and others to invest here.

Click to expand...

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has embarked on a massive technology-driven exercise aimed at collecting data related to the city through Geographical Information System (GIS).

Bangalore and Hyderabad are known to be the only two cities in the country to have mapped details using an advanced GIS and now Nagpur will become the first city in Maharashtra and the third in the country to do so.

The data will eventually be available to the public through NMC’s website www.enmc.org.in . It will help the civic body appreciate what all it has and where it is losing revenue.

For convenience, the civic body has divided the task into two parts: collecting images through satellite and doing field surveys to gather other requisite information.

The Maharashtra Remote Sensing Application Centre (MRSAC) is using an American satellite fitted with high resolution cameras for obtaining detailed satellite images.

Field work is being done by M/s ADCC Infotech Private Limited and M/s Speck System Limited (Hyderabad). The city has been divided into two zones for the purpose of field survey and each company is in-charge of one zone. NMC is paying Rs 1.5 crore to the companies.

He said that using GIS data is being collected on roads, bus shelters, cross drainage, storm water drains, sewer lines, manholes, footpaths, hawker zones, markets, road dividers (median), NMC hoarding sites, parking sites, toilets and urinals, public taps, property (revenue), street lights, traffic islands, transit points, trees, water pipelines, etc.

Municipal commissioner Lokesh Chandra is confident that GIS will ensure complete transparency in development works.

Duplication in the developmental works will be prevented once this system is in place and help NMC in keeping track of new properties and renovation of existing ones. Once GIS database is available, officials will know when a road is constructed and tarred. This is not possible now.

Each and every detail of the property will be available with NMC including zone number, city survey number, plot number, khasra number, mouza number, floor, floor type, owner, occupant’s name and address, building number, type of building, telephone number, water meter number, index number, location, occupancy factor, age factor, date of construction and cost of construction, etc.

Click to expand...

Nagpur seems to have appeared simultaneously on the radar screens of many five-star groups as teams from three more chains are understood to have made initial surveys to locate their properties here.

Two hotel chains Kamat Group and Radisson Hotels and Resorts have committed investments of Rs 100 crore and Rs 35 crore respectively.

Now, Le Meridian, Ginger Hotels of the Tata Group and the Hyatt Group are understood to have sent advance teams to the city to scout for possible locations for their properties.

Interestingly, all of them have shown keen interest in land bordering the Wardha Road even as they also looked up some other sites. Builders and property agents said that if any one of them comes up with a firm offer, land rates may shoot up all over again.

Already, property rates on Wardha Road are at their zenith and nobody is willing to hazard a guess on how high they could go.

Kamat and Radisson’s too have decided on Wardha Road for their respective properties.

A four member team from Le Meridian, a company with several five star properties across the country, visited the city recently.

Though the amount of investment and the standard of facilities that it is planning to offer, are not known, an industry insider said that the company was planning to start operations here within 18 months.

Realty dealers also disclosed that Ginger Hotels, a chain of budget hotels of the Tata Group, visited the city for purchasing a plot, again, on Wardha road. The group, reportedly, failed to zero in on any particular site that could fulfill their needs.

Hyatt Group of Hotels too have checked up on the city. Another group of economy hotels, Lemon Tree Hotels, has also shown interest in Nagpur.

Click to expand...

Close on the heels of Boeing’s decision to set up it its $100 million maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility near Nagpur and a few big players in the hospitality sector also eyeing the city, major real estate developers are flocking to the city for acquiring land.

The last three months have seen five leading names in the real estate development sector sending teams to the city for studying the business potential.

At least two of them have finalised their plans for developing townships, IT parks and super malls in and around the city while others are holding discussions with civic authorities, officials of the Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) and real estate agents.

The companies are planning to acquire land ranging from 5 acres to over 100 acres. Mumbai-based K Raheja Group has even announced its plans for such an acquisition. A number of real estate companies, including some local ones, have marketed townships on the periphery of the city.

The Sahara Group had already announced its ‘Sahara City project’ on Wardha Road. However, the project is reported to be running behind schedule.

Undeterred by the experience of the Sahara Group, the K Raheja Group, Soham Group, Kolkata’s Awani Group, Gujarat’s Adani Group and Mumbai-headquartered Hiranandani Developers have scoured Nagpur and neighbouring areas for land.

The K Raheja Group is looking for 5-100 acres of land for constructing super malls and an IT park here. It wants land in “prime locations and on the main road.”

The Soham Group, a 25-year-old real estate firm from Thane, visited the city to look for a suitable land of around 200 acres recently. The group is keen on Wardha Road for its proposed township. It has to its credit developing almost 35 per cent of the total residential area in the Thane region. Representatives from the group were in the city on December 26, sources said.

A team from Avani Projects and Infrastructure Limited, the flagship company of Kolkata-based Avani Group, also visited the city. It wanted around 100 acres on Wardha Road. The group, which was established in 1994, already has 20 landmark projects under its belt in the metro.

Well-known Hiranandani Developers from Mumbai was here around three months ago scouting for land, again on Wardha Road. They also visited the MIHAN and SEZ areas for a possible venture of over 200 acres in the residential sector.

The Ahmedabad-based Adanis, which visited Nagpur on December 21, has interests in energy, retail, metals and agri products. The group, which is currently expanding into real estate, was in news last year for bagging a Rs 2,250-crore contract for developing commercial and retail hubs in the Bandra-Kurla complex in Mumbai. Adanis are looking for over 100 acres land on Wardha Road.

Enquiries by these major groups is fuelling land prices and the rates which are already high, are now going through the roof.

Click to expand...

Nagpur may soon be a ‘bin-free’ city. The Nagpur Municipal Corporation has cleared a proposal to award the work of collecting trash from the doorsteps of citizens to Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services (IL&FS), New Delhi, and the Centre for Development Communication (CDC), Nagpur, for a period of ten years.

The two had quoted Rs 449 per tonne, which was the lowest bid. The civic body had called for tenders three times.

According to the standing committee, if the NMC had undertaken the work, it would have cost it Rs 235 crore over a period of ten years. But with this, it would be able to cut its costs by almost half over the next decade. IL&FS and CDC would soon purchase 550 carts to start the work.

Click to expand...