Cos occupy IT parks despite infrastructure bottlenecks

Despite infrastructure hiccups in Bangalore, some companies have begun to take spaces in private IT parks or commercial office developments projects.

Of late, companies are looking towards multi-tenanted properties to cut costs. Facility managers of IT companies say they save 8 to 10 per cent in multi-tenanted properties as compared to company owned campuses.

"The state government, having set itself deadlines to complete the ongoing flyover projects, has made companies look at other options in addition to moving into own campuses," said Ram Chandnani, head, south India operations, CB Richard Ellis.

With this scenario developing in the city, many commercial office developments have mushroomed on Airport Road, Outer Ring Road, Old Madras Road, Inner Ring Road and Whitefield.

Embassy Golf Links Software Park (EGLSP) and Bagmane Tech Park have attracted the most in the non commercial business district (CBD).

EGLSP, located overlooking the Karnataka Golf Association course, will have four million square feet of built up space on completion by the end of year 2006 and boasts of tenants like Microsoft, IBM, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Covansys, LG Soft, Bearing Point, Wal-Mart, Network Appliances, McAfee and Daimler Chrysler.

Bagmane Tech Park, comprising two scenic lakes and the development, will have three million square feet when complete and houses companies like Motorola, Texas Instruments, Samsung and Cognizant.

In addition to these two, other sought after developments are like RMZ Infinity, a 1.2 million square feet development under construction, and Salarpuria Nova on Old Madras Road.

On the Inner Ring Road, Maruthi Infotech, with 450,000 square feet of office space, is in the final stages of completion and has tenants like Airtel, Hutch and Aztec. Salarpuria Tech Point on the main Inner Ring Road is under construction and will have 250,000 square feet.

Developers are under pressure to keep their commitments and complete their work and hand over sites to corporate clients by the year end. Shortage of quality labour and rising costs have been the main worry.

The pressure is magnified by the fact that demand has been rising all through, yet the number of quality developers has remained the same.

Hence, each developer is having to simultaneously execute several projects.