‘Provide higher Floor Space Index’

G Seshasayee, Chief-Business Development, Navin’s, gives an overview.

Micro markets are a cluster of areas that feed on to a nuclei or main business or connecting area, which acts like a node. Anna Salai, Velacherry-Perungudi-Taramani,Alwarpet-Teynampet, Nungambakkam, Ambattur are the prominent areas that are having consistent demand for commercial spaces, apart from the traditional areas generally preferred in the city for office spaces.

Office spaces at present in Chennai are located in the CBD and secondary CBD’S of the city. The nature of the organizations, their scale, level of operations, services correspond to their office location, size, set up etc. While the past decades have had banking/financial services or other corporate institutions that dominated the office space foot print, in the recent years IT and allied sectors have dominated the footprint of office space absorption in the city. Establishment of many start ups in the city has led to demand for smaller sizes.

Growth of startups, springing or branching of 3rd generation business ventures, expanding service and technology based firms, unique and creative business developments have created demand for spaces corresponding to their scale of operations. Plug and play model is predominantly preferred, which reduces the end users investment on the setting up cost, and adds value to the developer, fetching higher rental returns.

Anna Salai, Velacherry-Perungudi-Taramani,Alwarpet-Teynampet, Nungambakkam, Ambattur are the prominent areas that are having consistent demand for commercial spaces, apart from the traditional areas generally preferred in the city for office spaces.

The various sectors that induce growth for demand in office spaces in the city are present include Startups, IT and allied services, Logistics, Banking and Financial services, Health care are absorbing maximum spaces with respect to office space footprint. Commercial, retail and lifestyle based organisations are also requiring vast office space that corresponds to their scale of market presence.

he market pricing for rental and leasing varies, depending on the following parameters like the size or area(sq.ft)of space required, location and accessibility, infrastructure and whether the space offered is warm or cold nutshell, security, maintenance services, power backup and parking facility that the building could offer that is essential for setup or function of an organisation. 

Availability of land parcels to suit commercial requirements, competitive and challenging rental returns compared to investment and set up costs; development of residential and industrial zones, that contribute to the growth of commercial zones; changing requirements of evolving work culture and requirements; high set up costs, demand for increasing parking availability, additional maintenance and supply of services are some the challenges being faced in commercial space development today. 

Areas to be improved in commercial development include— adapting green and sustainable building practices, encouragement of the occupants, lessee to use carpooling or public transportation to reduce demand for exceeding parking, provision for higher FSI’s, better regulations/Sops for commercial developments, flexible commercial land zoning and regulations are the areas of improvement.