Banks absorb most commercial spaces

Much of the outright sale transactions in the last quarter also involved the financial sector with Edelweiss and J&K Bank each acquiring one building in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) with a total built-in area of 1.80 lakh sq ft and 65,000 sq ft respectively.

Abhishek Kiran Gupta,head of Research and Real Estate Intelligence Services , JLLM,said with the state government’s recent decision to allow letting out of IT parks to financial institutions,an entire new supply is expected to open up for the BFSI. He said the Parel belt especially was expected to witness a huge supply,resulting in a downward pressure on commercial rentals here. The rents in Nariman Point and BKC were not expected to go down any further due to the limited supply.

Two new commercial buildings became operational in the last quarter — Phase II of One Indiabulls Centre in Lower Parel and Kohinoor City in Kurla,both together accounting for 1.4 million sq ft of office space. As of today,Mumbai’s 25.9- million sq ft prime commercial stock has a vacancy level of 8.7%. It said transactions were expected to increase in the coming quarters.