B'luru's Sarjapur Road 3rd fastest growing residential hub

Sarjapur Road, which houses some of the best known technology companies in the world, has emerged the third fastest growing residential hub in the country.

Sarjapur, strategically located close to Electronic City in East Bengaluru, has seen property prices appreciating by 32.56% in past five years. The properties in this micromarket were priced at Rs 5,700 per sq feet at the end of July 2017, compared with Rs 4,300 per sq feet in 2012.

Among the top 10 cities, listed as the 'hottest residential investment markets' by real estate advisory ANAROCK Property Consultants, two other localities from Bengaluru make a cut as well - Kanakapura Road and Varthur. While Kanakapura Road saw an appreciation of 28.21% since 2012 from Rs 3,900 per sq feet to Rs 5,000 per sq feet, Varthur grew by 22.86% to Rs 4,300 per sq feet from Rs 3,500 per sq feet in 2012.

Mumbai's Ghodbunder Road has seen the highest appreciation of 35.21% during the period. The prices in the micromarket have shot up from Rs 7,100 per sq feet in 2012 to Rs 9,600 per sq feet at the end of July. Another micromarket from the city, Pokhran Road is at the second slot in the list, having seen a jump of 32.98% since 2012.

Sarjapura Road is one of the most sought after places across the country for office space by Multi National Corporations (MNCs). Tech bellwether Wipro has its head office in the locality. Intel Technologies, L&T Infotech, Oracle, KPMG, Ness Technologies, Microsoft, Fidelity and hundreds of other companies are located in the area.

Sarjapur Road has about 2.4 million sq feet of office space, with about 24,000 people work there, according to another real estate advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). But Sarjapur Road is part of a bigget IT Ecosystem of Outer Ring Road (ORR). Along the ORR and off ORR, the road has about 2.7 million sq feet of office space just in ORR’s eastern stretch in proximity to Sarjapur Road, adding another 27,000. Along with entire ORR, there is 34 million sq feet of office space translating to 3,40,000 employees.

The period 2011–13 was marked by hectic construction activity and it observed the launch of approximately 13,210 units on a stretch of 16.5 km – starting from the Sarjapur ORR junction till Sarjapur village, according to data available with Knight Frank. The area saw launch of 1,800 units in 2016 alone.

Since 2010, around 52 companies have taken space on lease in areas of Sarjapur Road, ORR- Eastern Stretch, and on/off Old Airport Road.

In the first half of this calendar year, Microsoft alone accupied 588,784 sq feet of office space in Prestige Ferns Galaxy, located on Sarjapur Road.

Bengaluru-based IT giant Infosys acquired 202 acres of land in Sarjapur to set up an IT SEZ, but no development has taken place on this land for several years as of 2016. In October 2013, the Azim Premji Foundation announced acquisition of 50 acres of land in Sarjapur for a world-class university.

Along with Sarjapur Road, Varthur offers proximity to the key office areas in Whitefield, Electronic City and Koramangala. "Being a part of the Outer Ring Road, these two areas have benefited significantly from the growth of IT corridors along this important route.

Coupled with the affordable prices in most residential projects, both these locations will remain a hit with end-users and investors," Anuj Puri, Chairman – Anarock Property Consultants said.