DLF to invest Rs 1,700 crore in office space, data centre

DLF will invest close to Rs 1,700 crore in developing about 3.7 million sq ft of office space and a data centre in Noida, a senior executive told ET.

The real estate company has leased about 360,000 sq ft of space at the upcoming Noida IT Park to Singapore-based ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC) with the option of doubling it. DLF has also planned office towers in the project.

“In the first phase, we are completing an office tower of about 4.5 lakh (450,000) sq ft in addition to the data centre building,” said Sriram Khattar, MD-rental business at DLF. “We have a healthy pipeline of enquiries and we will take up the construction of the other towers in phases.”

DLF is India’s biggest office space operator with about 38 million sq ft of completed offices. The company leadership believes that office demand will be robust in the coming months.

“Availability of trained English-speaking talent in India at low cost, along with world-class space solutions also at low cost, will continue to attract MNCs and drive the office space demand,” Khattar said. “We have seen an increase in enquiries and we look forward to growing our office’s portfolio with cautious optimism.”

DLF has also started construction work on 2 million sq ft of office space in Gurgaon as it sees rising demand for Grade A office buildings in the coming year.

The company will invest Rs 1,500 crore for construction of office space in downtown Gurgaon and Chennai.

In the third quarter ended December, DLF had announced that the office business is on a recovery trajectory. This, however, could suffer a setback if there’s another big surge in Covid-19 cases.

The growth in digitisation, digital transformation along with robust hiring plans for IT/ITeS companies are expected to lead the recovery across this segment. Long-term fundamentals for the business and attractiveness of India as a service market continues to remain intact.

“New development remains on track. We continue to further grow our portfolio by building more quality assets,” DLF had said. “DCCDL REIT readiness continues to be on track.”

Delhi-NCR is expected to clock about 8.1 million sq ft in 2022 on the back of a strong vaccination drive and a gradual return of employees to the office, according to International real estate advisory firm Savills India.

Gross absorption touched 7.8 million sq ft during the year, an increase of 79% y-o-y, which indicated a strong resurgence in office demand.

The IT sector is expected to remain among the key occupiers in 2022, while demand from other sectors such as BFSI and coworking is also likely to show improvement.

Also, due to marginal correction in rentals, Gurgaon contributed the most to leasing activity with 63% share, followed by Noida at 32%.