Knowledge City by Salarpuria Sattva in HITECH City, Hyderabad promises to set a new trend of ultra-modern office spaces in Hyderabad where the expectations with Grade A office space has been quite moderate. Track2Realty rates this project A+.
Project: Knowledge City
Developer: Salarpuria Sattva
Location: HITECH City, Hyderabad
Area: 30 acres
Leasable Space: 7 million square feet
Track2Realty Rating: Grade A+
Office space is the prime determinant in the economic cycle of real estate. It is the consumption of office space that indicates the economic activity & jobs in the given market. This job creation leads to demand of housing units, which further leads to the demand of retail spaces. This has been the real estate consumption pattern world over.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the consumption of office space, the track record of the Indian cities has been pretty poor. As per the back of envelope calculations by Track2Realty, the global average of office space consumption is 65 square feet per household. But in India, there is only one city, Bengaluru, that is closer to this global average with 55 square feet per household. Mumbai is distant second and the rest of the cities are nowhere near the global benchmark of office space consumption.
And it is here that one needs to understand how the economic growth in general and commercial real estate in particular has been pretty lopsided in India. While the developers’ increasing focus on the performing markets led to saturation of those markets, other cities with high potential were neglected for long.
Take the case of Hyderabad that was once touted as India’s Silicon City; a race that it lost out to Bengaluru. And hence, when I was first told about a high-quality Grade A office space at HITECH City in Hyderabad, I was curious to know whether the time has come for the Hyderabad to experiment with world-class projects.
After all, the economy of this high potential city has suffered a lot due to the political uncertainties in this part of the world. Now that the political uncertainties have settled with the bifurcation of the state, it is pertinent to understand whether the city will eventually live up to its potential.
As I drive to the Hyderabad’s dedicated IT zone – HITECH City, it just takes me 30-minutes of drive from the International Airport, on the Gachibowli Expressway to reach Knowledge City. The 8-lane Main Road on the North and South side of Knowledge City seamlessly connects it to the rest of the city.
I have been disappointed with many of the high-profile projects in the past. My eyes for detailing often make the developers also pretty uncomfortable. However, in this case, and with moderate expectations and not actually expecting to review a top-class project, I was not disappointed.
Designed to facilitate a creative and balanced work life, Knowledge City is spread across 30 acres, with 6 towers (one tower is ground plus 8 and rest are ground plus 16) and 7 million square feet of leasable area that could cater to a workforce of 60,000.
One of the main concerns of most of the office buildings in Bengaluru, Mumbai or Gurugram is the traffic bottleneck. But this project has been planned with a central spine road to regulate the traffic and all entry-exits are designed to keep the ground floor pedestrian friendly. The campus can also accommodate 13,000 vehicles in its parking and additionally there is facility of bus bays for pick up & drop.
Knowledge City is an IGBC Platinum Rated Green Building with unique features of sustainability. To make the campus a happening place, there is one lakh square feet of standalone amenity block that has a covered amphitheater with seating capacity of around 500, and a video wall over the building façade. Futsal, badminton courts, squash courts, lawn tennis, fine dine, library, activity zone, adventurous wall climbing, health care, spa and sauna, yoga and aerobics, Zen garden, terrace swimming pool of half Olympic size etc. are the key features of this amenity block.
The entire ground floor areas of all the towers has been used to form a retail and F&B (Food & Beverage) hub so that people around and within the work place can find their basic needs well within the campus for their daily and regular needs.
Knowledge City is yet to be fully operational but has already signed some of the top international names as future tenants. A tower named as NOVA with 1 million square feet has been handed over to Novartis, the global healthcare company, in just 20 months and is fully operational.
Track2Realty rates this project as Grade A+. The project promises to be a trendsetter in Hyderabad that is expected to be the next growth driver of office space consumption in India. There are some more ambitious commercial projects coming up in the vicinity, but the developer Salarpuria Sattva will always have an edge with its first mover advantage in creating a futuristic project.
Ravi Sinha
