Nagpur developers to team up for building city’s first co-working office space
A group of developers in Nagpur, the winter capital of Maharashtra, have decided to jointly construct the city's first co-working space for leasing to IT companies in a special economic zone near the airport.
Initially, 50,000 square feet of office space will be constructed at the Multi Modal International Cargo Hub and Airport (MIHAN) SEZ, followed by two more facilities in south Nagpur. The investment will be about Rs 20 crore, and it will take 15 to 18 months to complete the project.
"This will essentially be the first co-working space to come up for IT companies in Nagpur, and around 10 to 20 developers from Nagpur will come together and construct 50,000 sq. ft co-working space at MIHAN-SEZ,” said Gaurav Agarwala, director of Nagpur-based Sandeep Dwellers Pvt Ltd (SDPL).
The MIHAN project is spread across 4,300 hectares and includes the expansion of the existing Nagpur International Airport. Of this, about 1,200 hectares is reserved for the SEZ, followed by non-SEZ reservation for open spaces, residential and retail development.
Since 2007,the authorities had anticipated an IT boom in Nagpur that was expected to generate Rs 8,500 crore annually in the form of income of 177,000 IT professionals and other employment opportunities in the MIHAN-SEZ. However, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru paced up their IT infrastructure and today are much ahead of Nagpur, the officials added.
Currently, HCL Technologies, Infocepts, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, and Tata Consultancy Services have a presence in Nagpur city. However, developers aim to create an ecosystem for existing and new companies to expand deep into the Nagpur market as Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have become competitive.
According to developers from Nagpur, until now IT companies did not expand in a major way in Nagpur possibly because of lack of supporting infrastructure.
"Land is available at Rs 1 crore for one acre in MIHAN-SEZ, but for IT companies to build the structure for one to three years is a long process, rather they must be preferring Pune, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru, where they can increase seats for their staff," said Agarwala, who is also president of CREDAI Nagpur, an apex body of real estate developers.
"We will study the model of Pune, Hyderabad or even Bengaluru for getting IT companies like Microsoft and Google… Currently the per square foot rental for IT space in Nagpur city is Rs 130, (bare shell), which is like the maximum."
While regular office leasing declined 12 percent in FY23 from a peak of 43 million sqft across the top seven cities in FY20, co-working space emerged as the gainer. The share of coworking in office leasing shot up to 23 percent in FY23 and demand for flexi office spaces was pegged to grow further by 15-20 percent over the next 2-3 years, according to an analysis by Anarock Research.
Pune topped with co-working spaces occupying a transaction share of 40 percent in the previous financial year, while Bengaluru came next with the net absorption of co-working office spaces increasing to 30 percent, according to the analysis.
