Ishanya mall catches global brands' fancy

Ishanya, a speciality design centre and mall promoted by Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corp, is gearing up to accommodate global brands of retail stores at its 5,50,000 sq ft location as design retailers from Spain, Italy, Thailand, Germany and Singapore have evinced keen interest in booking space.

The firm has already leased out over 10,000 sq ft space to Italy-based Ace Hardware group for setting up a store here.

"We will have two big global brands opening a 10,000-50,000 sq ft showrooms here, of which one showroom will be of Ace Hardware which will most probably open an Ace Home Improvement store," I S Narula, chief executive officer, Ishanya, said.

Saying that the recent government decision to allow foreign direct investment in branded, standalone retail showroom has garnered interest of global companies in the project, Naurala said, "We have been receiving inquiries from companies based in Italy, Spain, Singapore, Thailand and Germany, to name a few, and are in talks with them. We have reserved 20 per cent of our 5,50,000 sq ft space for them."

Leasing out property in three categories "" 10,000-50,000 sq ft, 10,000-15,000 sq ft and 1,000-2,000 sq ft "" Ishanya has already got 50 per cent bookings from Indian retail brands. "We have signed up with 22 brands, which account for 50 per cent of the project space.

These are in the upper categories, and we now expect to sign up another 50 brands in the smaller 1,000-2,000 sq ft category," said Narula.

Some of the brands that have already signed up are Home Town, Welspun, Nitco, E Zone, Collection I, Ace (a US-based brand being brought to India by Pidilite Industries), Goodlass Nerolac, Welspun, Fab India, Armstrong and Bose.

Ishanya is likely to be fully operational by July this year.