Office space: ‘Kolkata among top 7 cities to register max transaction of large-size deals’

Kolkata has featured in the list of top seven cities, including Chennai and Bengaluru, that registered maximum transaction activity in the large-size deal category in terms of office space with Salt Lake continuing

to maintain its position as a key submarket followed by Rajarhat.

Chennai and Kolkata recorded maximum transaction activity in the large-size deal category, while Delhi NCR deals were spread across the small, medium and large-size categories.

Further, Bengaluru, Pune and Kolkata recorded the highest rental growth.

On a y-o-y basis, average office rents in Kolkata rose by 2.6 per cent, according to a

recently compiled study report by the international real estate consultancy firm, Jones Lang Laselle (JLL). In Kolkata, gross leasing stood at 0.49 million (mn) sqft in Q2 2023, with office take-up driven by the Banking, Financial

Services and Insurance (BFSI) firms followed by the IT/ITeS segment.

The Salt Lake submarket accounted for the majority of the quarterly leasing activity with an 82 per cent share followed by Rajarhat which accounted for the rest.

Gross leasing activity for H1 2023 was over 3 times that of one year ago, the report observed.

As for the prominent upcoming projects in Kolkata that are set to further provide a boost to the office space market in the city, the report highlighted the following: Imagine Tech Park at Salt Lake with a gross leasable area (GLA) of 1.90 mn sqft.

Second is Siddha Esplanade in the Central Business District with a GLA of 0.19 mn sqft, and Ideal Unique Centre at EM Bypass with a GLA of 0.78 mn sqft. All three projects are expected to be completed by Q4 2023.

The report further highlighted that in Kolkata, the net absorption during Q2 2023 was 0.33 mn sq ft, equaling the combined net absorption numbers for the last two quarters of 2022.

“In fact, net absorption for H1 2023 is already higher than the full-year numbers for 2022, indicating the return of expansion-driven space requirements to the market in a sustained manner” it observed.

It predicted that a supply of around 1.9 mn sqft is expected during 2023.

Vacancy levels are expected to remain within range in the upcoming quarters with occupiers’ intention to expand likely to keep net absorption in the positive territory.