Lodha Developers: The realty force to reckon with

Mumbai based Lodha Developers lands in London in style. The company will buy the iconic MacDonald house in Mayfair's Grosvenor Square for over Rs 3000 crore and plans to convert this six storey building into super luxury condos.

Grosvenor Square in London's Mayfair is one of the world's more expensive and coveted addresses. And so is the MacDonald House that was built before the Second World War. It has a posh address of One Grosvenor Square in the prime Mayfair area of central London. It is a stone’s throw from Oxford Street and in close proximity to the Buckingham Palace. It has also been the Canadian High Commission for 50 years.
However the Mumbai based Lodha Group will move in next year. After two months of deliberation Lodha Group signed the dotted line and exchanged contracts to buy this marquee MacDonald House for over Rs 3000 crore of which 10 percent is already paid.
Abhinandan Lodha, Deputy MD, Lodha Group says, “The Commission clearances are already in place. The initial amount of payment which is due as per the bid document have already been made, the remaining payments have to be made in a couple of tranches which shall be completed before the month of March.”
The developer plans to convert this Canadian diplomatic headquarters into super luxury condos that will be spread across a cumulative 160000 square feet . Considering it is London’s most posh address, buyers of the proposed condos would have to pay top dollar or pounds in this case.
Experts say Lodha's at the lower end are likely to command 4000 pounds a square feet or approximately Rs 4 lakh per square feet. This can go all the way up to jaw dropping 6000 pounds or Rs 5.4 lakh per square feet.
Lodha adds, “The final development plan will be frozen by end of March. It will be a high end development - of what nature? It will only be frozen by end of March and we believe that we should be in a position to start work by mid of next year. We will be looking at getting the best in line design partners in the world which is the Lodha philosophy of working and we will evolve those names over the next two or three months.”
The developer, however, is going to face competition from none other than Abu Dhabi Investment Council. But along with the property developer, Withington has bought 20 Grosvenor House for over 250 million pounds earlier this year. This former US navy building will be redeveloped into super luxury condos.
Incidentally this is the second property Lodha's has purchased from a foreign government.
In December 2012, it bought Washington House, the staff headquarters of US consulate at Mumbai's prime Altamount Road for Rs 342 crore. Lodha clearly has sky high ambitions.
The company came into spotlight when over three years ago it announced the world's tallest residential building with over 117 storeys in Worli. Lodha said, its World One tower at a height of 450 metres would do off  global landmarks like the Empire State Building in New York and the Q1in Gold Coast, Australia. This tower will house 290 apartments, 64 villas and private pools and 17 so called mansions on its top floor with interiors by Casa/Armani.
On World One’s progress, Abhinandan Lodha added, “It is currently retailing at Rs 46000 per square feet for the apartments. Villa's and mansion's are currently not open for sale.”
“Most of the assets which Lodha launches, our aim is to sell off around about 50-60 percent in the first year of sales. We are well on track for all these assets at this point in time,” he highlights.
However, the progress of construction at the World One has not impressed realty experts and they fear the completion deadline could be extended. Despite being privately held with no compulsions to declare details from its balance sheet, Lodha claims to have outperformed all competitors pan India by clocking sales of Rs 8700 crore so far this fiscal.