Hines Planning An Increase of 4 million sqft to Its India Portfolio

The company is looking to expand its portfolio in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon and is also in talks to enter new markets like Noida, managing director and India country head Amit Diwan said.

“We currently operate 6 million sq ft of commercial and 4 million sq ft of residential space and we will add another 4 million sq ft of which one million sq ft will be residential. We currently have residential business in Mumbai and Bengaluru, one project each and we are looking to do more projects in those locations,” Diwan said.

He said after the Covid-19 outbreak, demand for premium space had gone up and that the company was witnessing better demand for its upcoming projects.

“Millennials, who were staying away from home ownership earlier, are now back in the market as potential buyers. They did not generally like the concept of having a home but we are seeing a much younger population now saying that they do appreciate the benefit of having a home,” Diwan said.

In the commercial segment, Hines will come up with more projects this year.

“In commercial, our joint venture with DLF is going well and we have started construction a couple of months ago. We have recently announced a new project in Pune and have also got construction started in Bengaluru. We should also be announcing a new project in Bengaluru very soon,” he added.

Hines and real estate developer Elevate, a luxury residential complex in Gurgaon, with an investment of Rs 700 crore.

“We are in advance talks for more projects together on the residential and living space particularly. We will first expand the partnership with Conscient here and then decide on the future plan,” Diwan said.

The total cost involved on this project is Rs 1,500 crore out of which 55% has been spent on Phase I (about Rs 800 crore) and about Rs 700 crore is dedicated to the second phase.

“Part of it was held back because of the lockdown situation. We would have liked it to happen three months earlier than we did but it is not a significant impact,” Conscient Infrastructure director Rajesh Jain said. “We are on time and Phase I will be delivered by December 2023, followed by Phase II in December 2024.”

Hines and Conscient had announced a joint venture to develop Elevate in June 2019. The project is Hines’ first residential venture in India. Conscient is the developer for the project while Hines is the investment manager and adviser.