Mumbai's skyscraper boom has almost entirely consisted of residential highrise development. The reasons for these are many, but namely because residential skyscrapers, especially with integrated retail, hospitality, and anemities, produce far less strain on infrastructure than their purely commercial counterparts, whose workers would all need to commute to the tower every day. Secondly, for the longest time, India's banking, service, R&D and IT companies preferred glassy, sprawling lowrise campuses -- more of a college campus look and feel -- than towers.
With infrastructure redevelopment now likewise booming in Mumbai, coupled with a change in corporate culture, the future landmark skyscraper projects proposed in Mumbai are increasingly commercial in nature. Leading this change from the front is one of Mumbai's largest real estate developers,
K Raheja Universal, who are actively promoting commercial skyscraper construction as a necessity for Mumbai, and the only way to halt sprawl.
For the last couple years, their company has talked about a "landmark" purely commercial skyscraper that will break the mental/cultural dam holding back corporate skyscraper construction in Mumbai. They called this development "
Raheja Platinum".
Designed by JP Parekh & Son architects, conceivably on retainer with Raheja Universal, Raheja Platinum was initially proposed last year with a modest -- but still groundbreaking, in terms of
commercial highrise construction in Mumbai -- height of 40 floors:
^ Initial rendering from 2007
But with a slew of commercial supertall construction announced in a number major Indian metros outside of Mumbai, and in the Raheja Universial company habit of suddenly upscaling their projects in height and design right before groundbreaking, Raheja Platinum was redesigned to almost double its height to
80 stories:
^ Finalized rendering just announced
Raheja Platinum is the flagship of Raheja Universal's commercial skyscraper blitz in Mumbai, with the following commerical, or residential-commerical developments in Mumbai:
Raheja Infocity I:
Raheja Metroplex:
Raheja Solaris:
Raheja Legend
Raheja Xenon:
Raheja Iridium:
All are designed to be corporate skyscrapers catering to IT/ITES companies, with the exception of Raheja Solaris and Legend, which are mixed-use developments.
These are all in the proposal stage, but according to an interview with Reality Plus magazine, these projects are to be "initiated" this year, whatever that means. However, if their other residential projects similarly "initiated" in 2006 are any indication, construction will start within a year.
Cheers,
Jai
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