Air India in talks to lease 400,000 sq ft at Vatika complex in Gurugram

Air India is in talks to lease about 400,000 sq ft of office space at Vatika’s office complex in Gurugram, three people aware of the deal said.

The erstwhile national airline now owned by the Tata Group has already signed a letter of intent (LoI) for about 200,000 sq ft with the option of doubling the space later, they said. The airline will shift all offices to this building, one of them said. Other Tata airlines – Vistara and AirAsia – may also shift to the same complex later.

“Air India is planning to consolidate and was initially looking for a property with Tata Realty, but that building is part of SEZ. Now, they have decided to move to this building, which is on the National Highway,” said one of the people aware of the deal. The Vatika project, One on One, on National Highway 8 is spread across 2.2 million sq ft and is being developed in two phases with an investment outlay of ₹1,200 crore.

CBRE India facilitated the deal. The consultant, Air India and Vatika did not respond to ET’s email queries till press time Thursday.

The Indian commercial real estate (CRE) office market saw net absorption rise 62% sequentially in the quarter ended June to 9.6 million sq ft, the best quarterly performance since the quarter ended December 2019 that saw 10.7msf of net absorption, according to a report by ICICI Securities.

“Most of the offices leased in the April-June quarter in NCR are of large size,” said Vibhor Jain, managing director – north India at real estate service firm Cushman & Wakefield. “Also, the deals are with the option of expanding the space in the same complex, which again reinforces that companies are certain on increasing the office space in near future.”