The road is hardly about half a kilometre long, but it passes through an area which is prime and prized property in the City. It starts at a junction near Bishop Cotton Girls’ School on St Mark’s Road and ends at Siddaiah Circle where it meets Kasturba Road.
The road which was earlier known as Grant Road is named after a great but low-profile industrialist and entrepreneur. Vittal Mallya (1925 - 1983) was an entrepreneur best known as the former Chairman of the United Breweries Group. Youngest of the three children of an army doctor Lt Col Bantwal Ganapathi Mallya, Vittal Mallya capped an academic career with two of India's most prestigious educational institutions (Doon School and Presidency College). He travelled abroad for over two years to gain first-hand, practical knowledge that he believed to be more valuable than formal education. In 1947, at the age of 22, Mallya was elected as United Breweries' first Indian director. After a year, he replaced R G N Price as the chairman of the company. Mallya initially operated from Calcutta and married much later after he had become the chairman of United Breweries Limited. He migrated to Bangalore in 1958. He had a prophetic vision that Bangalore would one day become a great city.
On one end of the road, there is an entrance to one of the biggest landmarks to come up in recent time — the UB City. It is a mixed use complex of several buildings — It has internet-ready, intelligent chrome and glass buildings. It will house commercial offices, banks, high-end retail stores, a five star hotel, serviced apartments, restaurants, food courts, pubs, health clubs, cafes, multi-level parking, amphitheatre, food courts and landscaped gardens.
UB City replaces what was once the factory premises of United Breweries. On the opposite side of the Brewery, there used to be a bungalow called Ascot, built by Lavelle who made his fortune in mining in Kolar Gold Fields. There is the compound wall of St Josephs’ High School and a layout called PGD’Souza Layout, named after a lawyer and a minister in Mysore Maharaja’s Government.
The road is not only fashionable, but also known for its fashion stores. Many top fashion brands and fashion designers have their outlets here — Ritu Kumar, Satya Paul, Rohit Bal, , Fflio, Espirit. Ffolio pioneered the concept of deasingerwear in Bangalore when it launched its outlet in 1991 housing some top designers. Esprit, the German fashion makers, opened its outlet recently.
At the junction where the road meets Lavelle Road (M L Subbaraju Road), you find Sunny’s, a restaurant located at Embassy Diamante, popular with the rich and the famous. It is run by theatre personality Arjun Sajnani. Shell also has its trendy outlet next to Sunny’s.
In the past, there used to be a number of bungalow. Many of them have disappeared replaced by trendy commercial buildings and apartments. One of the few bungalows on this road is JHF Lentin’s “Lenarc.”
