Offices oust hotel at DLF mall

Real estate major DLF, which plans to build a shopping mall called the "Grand Mall" at Rajarhat, has revised its blue print for the project.

According to the earlier plan, a Hilton Garden Inn was supposed to come up on the five floors of the mall.

Instead, the floors will now be developed as a commercial space.

With its second IT park in Bengal, DLF had recently announced its plans to invest in the range of Rs 700-1,000 crore for developing commercial projects in West Bengal.

According to industry sources, the design and the retail-mix of the mall, spread over 3 acres of land, have been altered to optimise the returns.

The retail space in the mall is expected to be increased from 3.68 lakh square feet to 4.4 lakh square feet, covering four of the ten floors of the mall.

One floor on the mall is slated to be developed as an entertainment zone. There would be two anchors and two mini-anchors in the retail space. Besides this, there will be a food court, restaurants, cafés and a four -screen multiplex with a seating capacity of over 1,000 people.

DLF has six retail real estate development formats, namely, stand-alone stores, shopping centres, prime downtown shopping districts, neighbourhood malls, destination malls and luxury malls. In retail, it has about 58 million sq ft of area under construction across the country.

The company also plans to identify and acquire land in 60 cities across India for retail space in the next few years.

Recently, it had divulged plans to invest Rs 16,000 crore over four years to develop about 20 large shopping malls across the country over the years.