Ramakrishna Mill Entering Property Development Buiz
Coimbatore based Sri Ramakrishna Mills is foraying into property development making use of its mill land. It has entered into a joint development agreement with Chennaibased realty player Arihant Griha to develop a residential-cum-commercial complex on its 20-acre Ganapathy unit at Satyamangalam road in Coimbatore. The company has started curtailing its textile operations and shifting machinery from the unit. “There are 45,000 spindles running at Ganapthy unit. We have already started shifting some of the apparatus,” Sri Ramakrishna Mills MD D Narayanaswamy told .He said the machinery from the Ganapathy unit will be installed at one of Ramakrishna Mills existing units at Satyamangalam in Tamil Nadu or at the Nagri facility in Andhra Pradesh. It is also open to setting up another facility at either of the existing places to accommodate the production of the Ganapathy unit, Mr Narayanaswamy said. While it is still working on the project details, it is learnt that only 16% of the total space will be developed, the rest to be left as open area for landscaping and greenery. The realty firm has tied up with a Singapore-based architect for the project.
Work on the first phase with about 400 apartments will start by the year-end. Half a million square feet of space will be developed in the phase and will take 18-24 months to complete. These will be multi-storey apartments up to 13 floors, in line with Arihant aprtments in Chennai. All put together, there would be 1,200-1,300 apartments. “We will develop 2.1 million sq ft totally, of which 85% will be for residential occupation and 15% for commercial space both shopping complex as well as office space,” a top official of Arihant Griha, who did not wish to be named, told.
The project would entail an investment of around Rs 300 crore. “By Coimbatore standards, it will be a premium project. As the site is just 8 km away from KG IT Park SEZ, it is expected to attract the IT professionals as well as those in the city,” the source said. Although, it is not being developed like an integrated township, the complex will have all the trappings of modern apartments, including clubhouse, gymnasium, smimming pool, shopping arcade etc.
