Ringing in the new order

Famous for its temples, Madurai has always been on tourists’ radar and gets a steady flow of visitors round the year. But that’s not the only claim to fame for the second largest city in Tamil Nadu. The IT boom has touched this temple town too, with Honeywell’s Research Lab (tied to the Thiagarajar Engineering College) and the TCS Disaster Recovery Centre being instrumental in IT development.
Spread over an area of 130 sq km, Madurai has a population of approximately 1.3 million. Domestic flights connect the city to state capital Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. International connectivity from Madurai airport, located 13 km from the city centre, is also expected to begin this year. In fact, according to a Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) report, real estate development is increasingly moving to the southern and western parts of the city, mainly around the airport, Rirupparankundram Road and By-pass road. This is due to a scarcity of land in the CBD (Chinnakadai).
The city has witnessed encouraging commercial development over the last three-four years. The state government has transferred two land patches — 29 acres at Ilandhaikulam and 213 acres at Vadapalanji — to ELCOT for SEZ development. Sify, HCL, TCS, Wipro and CTS have booked their space for campus developments in the SEZ. Upcoming developments in Madurai include three IT/ ITeS/ SEZs, covering a total area of approximately 128 hectares.
This apart, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board proposes to set up several office and commercial complexes in five prominent places in Chennai and Madurai to meet the demand for commercial space, according to a recent state policy note. Typical rentals in CBD are in the range of Rs 32-35/sq ft/month. Further, the commercial space in newly-developing areas could fetch a rental of Rs 24-28/sq ft/month, according to data available with C&W.
The residential space in Madurai, like all other small towns, is largely skewed towards independent homes culture. However, the apartment culture has picked up due to an increasingly investor population that’s now driving the demand for residential apartments and villas. This has attracted many national and international developers such as ETA star, Hiranandani Constructions, Sahara City Homes and ETL Infrastructure to develop properties in Madurai. Sahara has acquired approximately 125 acres to develop 15,000 unit apartment complex, while Arihant has close to 21 acres earmarked for an integrated township.
The existing and established retail precincts include the surroundings of the famous Meenakshi Temple in Chinnakadai Area, Anna Nagar, KK Nagar and the By-pass Road. There is no mall culture at present, but the few proposed ones such as Vishal Mall (165,000 sq ft) and Milan Mall (85,000 sq ft) will house an Inox multiplex and will open early next year. The city has quite a few stand-alone formats on the By-pass Road and in areas like Anna Nagar and K K Nagar. Rentals in the CBD are about Rs 50 per sq ft/month.
Off-CBD locations could attract rents up to Rs 35 per sq ft/month, according to C&W estimates. Traditional prime locations like P T Rajan Road, Old Natham Road and TPK Road attract prices ranging from Rs 2,000-2,600/sq ft. New supply is largely concentrated towards south/south-east Madurai. In terms of rental, the new built-up villa in CBD and off-CBD could attract as high as Rs 15,000 and for apartments between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000.

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