Few takers for solo units at Sarojini Nagar, NBCC to go for bulk sale of shops, offices

“For the first time, NBCC has decided to go in for bulk auction. The model prevailing in commercial real estate is that investors buy the property and retail businesses prefer to take the space on long-term lease. The single buyer will also be able to plan what kinds of businesses are located together and on which floor,” said NBCC chairman and managing director Pawan Kumar Gupta.

For example, a single buyer will be able to ensure that high-end stores, salons, restaurants, grocery stores and other kinds of brands are located along with similar stores, which is the practice in shopping malls run by private companies. Gupta added that the completion target of the project was November this year.

The project includes 329 shops, which are priced between Rs 56 lakh and Rs 2.63 crore each, and 324 offices that range in price from Rs 80 lakh to Rs 3.28 crore each, as per NBCC. Since being launched in July last year, the auctions have so far led to 31 shops being sold for a total of Rs 47.81 crore. The remaining shops and offices are set to be auctioned together soon.

The total project is expected to net around Rs 1,393 crore, as per NBCC. Once sold, the funds raised would be used for construction of the residential portions of the project.

The Downtown building would be spread over eight floors and include four basement levels, a first for an NBCC construction, NBCC director (commercial) KP Mahadeva Swamy said.

As of now, the basement levels, the ground floor and three floors have been constructed, with the work on site having begun in July 2022. With the site located next to the Sarojini Nagar Metro station and the popular Sarojini Nagar market, several challenges have come up during construction, as per officials at the site. To ensure safety of workers, a retaining wall was built from the fourth basement to the ground, Swamy said.

The Downtown project is among 14 packages of the larger redevelopment of the Sarojini Nagar GPRA colony. Apart from this, work on two other packages of residential towers is underway.

The Sarojini Nagar redevelopment project was among the seven GPRA redevelopments in Delhi approved by the Union Cabinet in 2016. The projects were supposed to be completed by 2021, however, most of them are running late.