With the construction of the Lodha Group’s World One Tower currently underway, Mumbai real estate market is already seeing the benefit. The tower has been designed not only to house luxury residences, but to act as an iconic landmark representative of the city. Abhinandan Lodha, Deputy Managing Director of the Lodha Group, told CNN last year that the building was representative of the presence of Mumbai, and indeed India itself as a BRIC nation, on the world stage. “When you go to Dubai you see the Burj. New York, (the) Empire State and so on. But Mumbai didn’t have a similar landmark like that which identified the city as being the next financial center of a global nation,” he said. “World One is our way to contribute in a different way, to say that we are globally on the map as India, globally on the map as Mumbai.”
The imminent arrival of this monumental structure has set something of an example, with other luxury developers choosing to build in Mumbai. Overall, property prices have moved upwards in the majority of localities last year, and there has been a rejuvenated interest from high net worth property investors both in Mumbai and abroad.
How World One Tower has improved Mumbai’s property market
According to the Magicbricks PropIndex (Q4 2014), Mumbai was the leading preferred destination for property investors last year, ahead of Bengaluru and Pune.
The report showed that prices had increased overall with capital gains of 6.65 per cent year-over-year, and that over 60 per cent of measured localities experienced a rise in property values. In Worli, the location of World One Towers, the price for luxury developments was Rs 40,787 per sq-ft last year, a figure likely set to rise with further development of high-end residences in the area. Worli has become the site of a great deal of luxury development, with the Lodha Group also constructing another residential building, The Park, in the area. The developers purchased the 7.5-acre former mill for Rs. 2,725 crore in 2012, and saw immediate interest from investors – 30 per cent of which were NRIs. Many other luxurious residential developments targeted at foreign HNWI are being built in Worli, too, such as Omkar 1973 Worli from Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt. Ltd. Here, 400 so-called “sky bungalows” are being marketed towards wealthy investors, cost Rs.38,000-40,000 per sq-ft. No stranger to high-end developments, Trump is also entering the market through a partnership with Lodha Group to develop the Trump Tower Mumbai.
Mumbai has emerged as one of the priciest places to buy luxury real estate in recent years, and according to Knight Frank, it is one of the top 10 cities in the world expected to see a growth in UHNWI between now and 2024. Ultra-high net worth investors interested in units in The Park, or indeed the World One Tower, can find out more information through Wetherell, the official Channel Partner of Lodha Group. Mayfair-based estate agents Wetherell will have access to all the prestigious developments in Mumbai, the latter of which has apartments available starting at £1.4 million.
Want to discover other buildings of tomorrow? The world’s most innovative projects have been shortlisted for the MIPIM Awards 2015. Click here to check out the finalists!
Top image via KishoreJ
