Lodha - building flats for socialites in Hyderabad

B D Narayankar

YOU GO abroad and stay in a villa or an apartment. You would get bored as there would be no one to share your feelings with. The life there is so clustered. This situation is also prevalent in most of the high-end villas and the residential towers in India. Lodha Group, a Mumbai-based realty company is set to address this problem in Hyderabad. Soon the company will begin constructing its multiple towers with 45 floors, each floor having one luxury apartment at Madhapur for those who value both high-end accommodation as well as socialising.

This is the second such project in Hyderabad after Lanco announced its plans to build 100 plus residential flats recently. Lodha Group is venturing outside Maharashtra to build residential towers for the first time in association with HDFC. It has already acquired 12.9 acres of land for the project in a government auction in Cyberabad six months back.

“About four towers with the very best facilities and green space would be created in the next few years,” said Lodha Group’s senior vice president (marketing) R Karthik.

He said that though villas offered comfort but they denied social life to the residents. "Now these posh apartments will address the problem but without sacrificing the privacy of the denizens living therein," he added.

Karthik, however, did not disclose the apartment costs, saying that his company would divulge related details soon. He said there was a very good response from the Hyderabadis to the group’s new venture.

He felt that the global recession might not impact the real estate sector in India too much. Though the kind of growth witnessed earlier might come down, but there would still be good growth because people want to live in comfort and they do have money. "They might be cautious about how they spend the money, but they would surely spend," he said.

Established more than 25 years ago, Lodha Group has many innovative firsts to their credit and are currently developing in excess of 25 million sq ft over 27 projects in and around Mumbai.

The Group also focuses on office spaces, IT campuses, weekend retreats, townships and SEZs. The company has attracted investments from the leading global financial institutions like JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and ICICI ventures. Its world-class structures are characterised by home automated systems, earthquake-resistant buildings, biometric fingerprint access, 24x7 multi-level security systems and eco-friendly environs among others.