HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private mortgage lender, has leased more than 250,000 sq ft of office space at K Raheja Corp-backed Mindspace Business Parks real estate investment trust (REIT's) business park in Airoli locality of Navi Mumbai for 10 years.

The bank is planning to develop its technology and processing unit at the new office that will service its operations across the nation.

The office tower, a part of Mindspace business park’s first phase, is currently under development and is likely to be finished in the next three-four months when the bank will begin its fit-out work.

Both the parties have already inked the letter of intent (LoI) for the contract, and the stamp duty has also been paid.

Out of around one million sq ft under-construction space, the developer has leased 600,000 sq ft so far, including the contract with HDFC Bank.

The bank had entered into negotiations and a preliminary deal much before it declared the plan to merge with its group entity HDFC.

Spread over 50 acres, Mindspace Airoli West is a fully integrated business park and is part of the Mindspace Business Parks REIT portfolio. It has a total leasable area of 5.2 million sq ft with future development potential of a further 0.3 million sq ft, apart from 0.9 million sq ft under-construction area.

So far, the park has finished the development of a total area of 3.9 million sq ft across six towers that estimate a total of 33 occupants and tenants, including Accenture, Atos India, UBS, CMA CGM, IDFC, and WorleyParsons.

In the first quarter, the combined net office space absorption of 2022 hit the highest since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak two years ago.

As per the JLL India data, across the top seven cities, net office leasing increased 113% from a year earlier to 11.55 million sq ft during January-March 2022.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic-driven work-from-home option available, the pre-leasing promises during the last year have remained unchanged, and there has been very limited or nearly no downsizing by large corporates, showing the change in occupier sentiment, and greater certainty of business as the pandemic stays under control.

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