High street stays prime in Banglore

Brigade Road & MG Road, hot destinations for over a century, remain hot.

Despite malls dotting the city, it is still advantage high streets in Bangalore. Brigade Road, Commercial Street, M G Road and a few streets in residential localities like Indiranagar's 100 feet Road, Koramangala's 80 feet Road, the fourth block shopping complex in Jayanagar and the entire stretch of Sampige Road in Malleswaram continue to score over malls on the Bangalore retail real estate scene.

Brigade Road, Commercial Street and M G Road, which have remained hot destinations for over a century, continue to do so, while the residential localities of Indiranagar, Jayanagar Koramangala and Malleswaram have become the fastest growing retail centres.

Malls (three of which are operational "" Forum, Garuda and Sigma) are a recent phenomenon in Bangalore. They did impact high-streets when they were launched a few years ago. Now, it's advantage high streets again.

According to the people in the industry, malls do not provide a complete shopping experience and in many malls some categories of merchandise are missing.

Malls have become places primarily for food and entertainment, and not foremost for shopping in the city.

"Presently, sales' realisation per square feet is the highest at shops located on Brigade Road and Commercial Street compared with other retail destinations," said Mayank Saksena of Trammell Crow Meghraj Property Consultants.

With this high realisation, Brigade Road commands the highest rentals of Rs 210-250 per square feet per month, followed by Commercial Street Rs 100-130 per square feet per month, Indiranagar' 100 feet Road Rs 120-150 per square feet per month, Koramangala's 80 feet Road Rs 90-120 per square feet per month, Jayanagar Rs 120-140 per square feet per month, and Malleswaram Rs 70-80 per square feet per month.

Malls, on the other hand, command Rs 75-80 per square feet per month in the central business district (CBD), Rs 55-60 per square feet per month off-CBD, and on the outskirts Rs 45-50 per square feet per month.

The irony is that despite being second to the traditional prime high streets, malls continue to come up and their space scooped up. Trammell Crow Meghraj estimates that about 2.18 million square feet of retail space is presently under construction in suburbs and is expected to be ready by the year 2008.

Organised retail space offtake in the city in the first quarter of 2006 has been 1.55 million square feet and another one million square feet of space is under construction in the non-prime central business district (CBD) and suburbs.

New malls, which are hitting the market are categorised as 'destination shopping centres'. Such mall space was expected to hit the market by the end of this year and had already begun to command around Rs 200 per square feet per month rentals, said Ranjit Phalgunan, director, Key Stone.

Steady demand for shop space from retailers is being witnessed in suburban and peripheral locations. The main focus are upcoming retail developments in the city with a number of mall projects being planned by developers.

"Whitefield continues to be a hot destination for commercial and retail activity, and is likely to see about 11 malls. Some of the upcoming malls are presently under construction in other suburban locations like Mysore Road and Old Madras Road," said Mayank Saksena.

Rajajinagar and Malleswaram in the non-prime CBD locations are slated to emerge as retail destinations in the future with developments such as Brigade Mall and Mantri Mall that are under construction in these localities.