GODREJ PROPERTIES has acquired the iconic RK Studios in Chembur and plans to build a residential and luxury retail complex on the prime real estate land spread over 2.2 acres. In a statement on Friday, Pirojsha Godrej, the executive chairman of Godrej Properties, said: “We are happy to add this iconic site in Chembur to our development portfolio. This fits well with our strategy of deepening our presence in key locations across India’s leading cities. We will seek to ensure we celebrate the remarkable legacy of this site with the goal of delivering an outstanding lifestyle for its residents.” Set up by actor Raj Kapoor in 1948, RK Studios was put up for sale last year after a massive fire gutted a large portion of the studio in September 2017. The space, used mostly for television and ad shoots over the last one decade, had been inactive since. The family touched up the exteriors of the property in anticipation of the Ganapati festival last year — the family’s last at the studio. A tradition started by Raj Kapoor, it was an annual affair at the studio. In August last year, actor Rishi Kapoor had admitted in an interview to a publication that the family has jointly decided to sell RK Studios after the fire in the main shooting floor destroyed the film memorabilia that the family had preserved over the decades. He had added that rebuilding the stage and maintaining the studio was turning out to be too expensive while the returns remained minimal. While brothers Rishi and Randhir Kapoor remained unavailable for comment, the latter, in the statement by Godrej Properties, said: “This property in Chembur has been of tremendous significance to my family over the many decades that RK Studios has operated from there. We are excited to have chosen Godrej Properties to script a new chapter for this location and build upon its rich history.”
