Ahmedabad seems to be going the Bangalore way as far as office space is concerned. Giving a tough competition to the usual norm of small office spaces in commercial complexes, personalised large sized units in corporate parks are making a steady headway in the city.
So much so, that in last 8-10 months, the city has seen a rise in number of corporate parks that offer individual office or retail space in sizes of 5,000 sq ft to even 15,000 sq ft. While the conventional office space is sized around 1,000-2,000 sq ft and suited for 40-50 employees, the large sized offices in corporate parks are suited for larger employee base of over 100.
"As many as 15-20 corporate park schemes have mushroomed in Ahmedabad in past 8-12 months. We have also seen a 20 per cent rise in enquiries from companies outside of Gujarat who are looking for large sized office spaces," said Neeraj Tomar, head Ahmedabad operations at Jones Lang LaSalle India (JLL).
For HN Safal Group that has developed Mondeal Retail Park and Mondeal Business Park on SG Highway, the developer has already sold out all of its 50-odd units. "At our Mondeal Business Park, we have already seen around 10 units being occupied by companies from varied sectors while we have sold out the entire 24 units scheme," said Anupam Tandon, head - operations at HN Safal Group.
In terms of sectors, however, Tomar said that it is the Information Technology (IT), corporate banking, financial and insurance services that form major part of the clientele. What's more, the corporate parks in Ahmedabad have also been a reason for more number of companies from outside the state of Gujarat now preferring to set up shops here. "These companies have been used to moving to cities like Bangalore and Chennai which have been offering large sized office space so far. However, with now Ahmedabad joining the league with a dozen-odd corporate parks in the city, these companies are now looking towards Gujarat," said Shrenik Shah, chief executive officer at Space Management, a city-based real estate consulting firm.
According to industry experts, each of these schemes are built on an average area of anywhere between one acre and 2.5 acres, offering 10-12 units of 10,000 sq ft space per acre. Also, apart from centralised maintenance and individual lifts, the corporate parks also offering flexible parking, wi-fi and individual optical fibre network.
