Hiranandani to relaunch Chennai, Panvel townships

Bengaluru: Hiranandani Developers Pvt. Ltd is planning to revamp and relaunch the two townships that it bought this year for around ₹ 1,000 crore in the next few months, said a top company executive.

The two townships, spread across 157 acres in Chennai and 588 acres at Panvel in Navi Mumbai, have been stalled for nearly two years.

Hiranandani bought the Panvel project in October and decided to call it Hiranandani Hills. The project in Chennai, which the real estate firm bought in an electronic auction earlier this year, will be called Hiranandani Parks.

“We are in the process of revamping the initial project plans as per feasibility. Therefore, we should be in a position to relaunch within next 3 to 6 months,” said Niranjan Hirananandani, chairman of Hiranandani Developers.

Both the upcoming projects belonged to Hirco Plc, an investment company that raised around $350 million on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London in 2006 to invest in real estate projects in India, that were going to be managed by the Hiranandanis. Niranjan Hiranandani was the then Hirco chairman, till he resigned from the board towards the end of 2010.

Subsequently, the situation turned unfavourable between Hirco and Hiranandani, when the projects were not completed, prompting lenders to take action to recover their money.

This year, Hiranandani bought the projects through auctions conducted by the lenders under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002 (SARFAESI).

He said that the projects were acquired with the two-fold objective: the lenders getting their loan and interest, and the customers getting their rights in the apartment.

Apart from the payment to the lenders, the unfinished apartments of the much-delayed projects will have to be completed and handed over to the customers, he said.

The first phase in the Chennai township has 1,584 apartments, of which 496 apartments have been completed and the remaining 1,088 apartments are under various stages of construction, a company spokesperson said.

In Panvel, 1,176 apartments in the first phase are under various stages of construction while 600 apartments in the second phase are yet to be constructed.

Hiranandani, best known for its mixed-use townships in Mumbai’s Powai area and Thane, is now gearing up to launch projects in smaller cities—in Nashik, Pune and Ahmedabad—as it looks to grow substantially.

The developer has bought land parcels in these cities and is looking at a township model of development with its launches in the coming year, said Hiranandani.

“In our newer township projects, we are now equipped to do in five years, what earlier took 25 years—in terms of construction, product or design,” he added.

Integrated townships are the need of the hour, said property analysts, though it is largely subjected to large land parcels that should be available for such development.

In case of large-scale real estate developments such as integrated townships or industrial corridors, smart infrastructure and buildings need to complement each other, said a November report on real estate by consulting firm EY.

“There is a lot of appetite for townships, so the demand is quite high for such projects. However, there are only a handful of such projects that have successfully come up so far, so that itself is a challenge,” said Om Ahuja, chief executive, residential services, Jones Lang La Salle, a property advisory.