Olympia to invest Rs 1000 cr in realty

Chennai's skyline is set to become broader as realty developers pull out more avant-garde residential projects from the Pandora box.
Chennai-based real estate developer Olympia plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore in realty projects at Chennai and Kolkata over the next 3 years. Once again, the Old Mahabalipuram Road is at the centre stage in the metro.
Realty prices, which hovered around Rs 4,000 per sqft here just a couple of months ago, after slowing down apartment bookings, have settled at Rs 3,500 per sqft now, stepping up market demand.
Olympia is planning a multi-product project on the OMR to cash in on the IT boom. To be located on 30 acres, 60 per cent of the land will be dedicated to a residential complex, 30 per cent for use of IT and non-IT office space and the balance for retail.
"We will be the first to cater to the non-IT demand on the OMR," Director, Khivraj Tech Park Ltd (the promoter), Chandrakant Kankaria told this website's newspaper. He said Rs 300 crore would be invested in the project with a mix of internal accruals and debt, including loans from banks.
About 1,500 apartments have been planned with the work expected to start in August next year and be completed in 3 years. A manufacturing facility and warehousing infrastructure for hardware and electronic companies, on 60 acres of land, has also been proposed at Sriperumbudur near Chennai.
The project is expected to get the green signal by mid- 2008. Also on the anvil is 'Olympia Opaline', a large residential complex on the OMR. To come up on 18 acres of land, the project's USP would be an air-conditioned club spread over 100,000 sq ft.
Expected to be the largest in South India, it would sport an indoor cricket arena, an outdoor equestrian training school, besides other five star amenities.
"A thousand apartments have been proposed in the first phase with an investment of Rs 275 crore, funded through internal accruals, debt and sale of residential apartments.
We also have additional land which can be later used to increase the area to 40 acres," said Kankaria. The first phase of the project is likely to be completed by March 2010.

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