Virtuous Retail to open two shopping malls in Bengaluru

Virtuous Retail, a retail real estate asset platform owned by institutional investment firm Xander Group, has announced its plans to open two malls in Bengaluru with a total investment of Rs 1,000 crore. It will also expand its presence in five more cities in India.

In an interaction with Deccan Herald, Xander Retail Asset Management Vice President Ankit Samdariya said the two malls will be built across 1.8 million sq feet area.

“The first project at Whitefield, named VR Bengaluru, will be built across 0.9 million square feet area and we are planning for a soft launch on October 14. VR Bengaluru is a company owned and operated mall with a total investment of Rs 500 crore. Our second project is a joint venture with Mantri Developers, and will be ready by 2016,” he said.

Xander, which started its operations in India by 2005, started Virtuous Retail in 2007 to cater to the growing demand of retail realty space.

“We started our first mall, VR Surat, in 2013. Our other projects in Pune and Chennai will be ready by next year. We are also planning to expand ourselves in five other cities —New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. In all these places, we are aggressively looking at green field and brown field projects,” said Samdariya.

Besides garnering enough expertise in mall designing, operations and management, Virtuous Retail has established good relationships with all top retail brands. “We have a very consumer-centric approach in evolving our brands and with the same brand equity we want to expand our footprint across India,” he said.

Virtuous Retail plans to change the retail landscape of India through a design-centric approach and technology-led innovation. “We are very particular that our malls should be shopping centres with unique design that should evolve themselves as community centres. We plan to integrate technologies when they shop and enable interaction with customers,” he said.

As part of the community-centric approach, VR Bengaluru is dedicated to the people of garden city. “In this project, we have devoted more front space for garden,  carousel and art installations. We also have a 3D mural displaying the history of Bengaluru. On the terrace, we have arranged yoga salon, hot pool and rooftop bar,” he said.

Taking into account the growing startup ecosystem, VR Bengaluru has an incubation centre with 25,000 square feet area where startups can commence their operations. “Startups will have all the amenities to flourish their businesses. There will be a boutique hotel and it will also have the presence of global brand shops,” he said.

With a total of seven million sq feet assets under its management, some of which are on executional phase, the company is also aggressively evaluating the possibility of a REIT(Real Estate Investment Trust) listing.