Pune : The Journey to Become a CBD

Pune has been a central market for sectors like banking, insurance, and finance since a long time. The main areas from where these sectors operated were Shivaji Nagar and Deccan Gymkhana areas. But as time progressed, city’s growth paced and reachability to Mumbai improved, the market there expanded which in turn triggered the growth of more operative business locations.

Deccan, housing a number of basic office premises, remained the central point of business for long. As bigger brands entered into the picture, factors of location and reach became more important. Their sole criteria of selection was operational efficiency. Zones like Camp and Dhole Patil Road gained popularity as business locations.

The city witnessed a phenomenal growth of commercial spaces over the last decade. Big construction projects came into existence as the demands of the existing and migrating residents increased.

Pune soon turned into one of the major IT hubs from all over the world. Mega corridors like Hinjewadi and Kharadi, with well developed infrastructure, rated high as business hubs in India. These two areas are set on the way to become self-sufficient ecosystems, changing the expectations from a conventional workspace.

While these two corridors became the IT spots, many regional office set-ups for non IT businesses also became a part of the planned ecosystem. Big brands now preferred to shift from an old city where the infrastructure was limited and lacked even basic services like parking. Demands of office space consumers were changing, thus leading to emergence of innovative operative business locations.

Development is not complete until it covers all the aspects. As the corporate aspect accelerated in the city, so did the public infrastructure along with private infrastructure. Hence, many new business districts emerged at accessible distances from the centre of the city constituting all high-end corporate spaces, turning it into a Central Business District (CBD). Individual developers made good use of the opportunity and created an ecosystem that could serve to the various needs of modern businesses. The CBDs had all the factors of an appropriate business location, which attracted investors as well.

The prominent names in the list of CBDs include zones like Yerwada-Nagar Road-Viman and Deccan-SB Road-Baner. Offering the advantages of a good business location, these zones have all the features to attract and retain high-end occupiers. These zones would be considered as the perfect business hubs with the advent of the second round of development in Pune.

As the preferability of locations changed, the patterns of investments also underwent a change. Traditionally, investors used to be the automatic landlords and derived a steady income. But builders soon overtook and started utilising commercial spaces projects as a higher yield prospect for themselves. Due to the high interest rates and limited loan availability, investment in office spaces remained to be the domain of affluent business owners, builders and landlords.

Things gradually changed when loans were made easily available with comparatively lower rates of interest. A different class of investors emerged. An upwardly moving corporate employee now looked forward to invest in higher rent yielding commercial property. “Higher capital values, coupled with diminishing rental yield from residential projects as an investment vehicle, has only helped channelise investment into commercial spaces,“ says Aakash Kale from Sky Realty.

Coworking spaces in Pune are now seen as valuable assets, thanks to the rapidly growing demand for top class office spaces and factors that led the evolving of this new and matured class of investors.