Reliance Industries (RIL's Realty) plans to build flagship shopping mall in South Delhi

Reliance Industries (RIL's Realty) plans to build flagship shopping mall in South Delhi


Reliance Industries plans to build a flagship shopping mall in South Delhi - a part of a plan to invest heavily in real estate to complement its retail business.

Reliance will construct a 720,000 sq ft commercial complex at Alaknanda on a plot it won in a Delhi Development Authority bid in 2007 for about Rs 400 crore. Brands owned by Reliance Retail will occupy two-fifths of the total retailing space.

The company is expected to spend anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 250 crore on construction that will be completed by the end of 2014. It will compete with Select Citywalk at Saket and the Ambience mall at Vasant Kunj, among others.

The company has received the Union environment and forest ministry's approval for the project, but is yet to get nod from Delhi Pollution Control Committee.

According to the committee's minutes of the meeting held on June 15, it has demanded that Reliance plant more trees in the complex including tall canopied trees and jamun trees.

Reliance entered the retail space in 2006 and Reliance Retail currently operates more than 1,300 stores of various formats from grocery outlets to large hypermarkets nationwide.

The company now plans to invest heavily on real estate, which accounts for a sizeable portion of a retailer's cost.

Reliance has bought land in about 150 cities in the country and plans to construct malls and shopping complexes on many of them.

The company is currently building four million sq ft of retail space in various cities across north India alone, the person said, adding that Reliance has already acquired more than 20 sites in Delhi alone and the company can build malls on many of them.

The Alaknanda project will have three basement levels-with parking space for more than 1,000 cars and 700 two-wheelers-and ground level plus five storeys, the official said. Various brands of the company will snap up about 200,000 sq ft out of the total 500,000 sq ft of retailing space in the mall while the rest will be leased to non-competing brands.

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