Kamal Amrohi Studios, site of Pakeezah shooting, will house one of the city's biggest offices

RMZ has started construction work on the RMZ Nexus, and has appointed noted architecture firm SOM as the project's principal architects

The Kamal Amrohi Studios, a 15-acre plot of land on the arterial Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, which used to be the shooting floor for many iconic films and television shows- most notably Pakeezah- for well over five decades, will now house what its developers claim to be Mumbai's single-largest office space. Bengaluru-based RMZ has started construction on the office premises. The firm has teamed up with the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for the project, which is estimated to have an outlay of around $750 million.

More recently, the studios were used for shooting part of the film Dabangg 2, starring Salman Khan and directed and produced by his brother Arbaaz. A number of recent television shows have also been shot on the premises, till the studios were owned by descendants of the famed filmmaker and producer Kamal Amrohi, who set up the studios in 1958.

Amrohi shot large parts of Pakeezah, considered his magnum opus, at these studios. Due to the large budget required for the film, production issues, and his years-long separation from Meena Kumari, his wife and the film's lead, Amrohi required more than 15 years to release Pakeezah in the theatres.

His last film as a director, the high-budget box office dud Razia Sultan, starring Hema Malini, Dharmendra, and Parveen Babi, was also largely shot here. The film was released in 1983, a decade before his death.

As for the office project, titled RMZ Nexus, Thirumal Govindraj, RMZ's chief executive officer for its office business, said in an interaction with Moneycontrol that the project will be divided into two phases, with the firm roping in American architecture firm SOM as the principal architect for the project. SOM has designed assets such as the Burj Khalifa and the Bengaluru International Airport.

"We have started piling work at the site, and we are also appointing an international construction firm to build the premises. The first phase of the project will have 1.7 million square feet of space, which we expect to complete in the next 36 months, following which the other phase will be taken up," Thirumal said.

While the project has been in the offing for more than five years, it had encountered delays due to issues in approvals, as well as providing an exit to erstwhile partners in the project who owned the land - DB Realty (now known as Valor Estate) and an arm owned by Pune-based developer Avinash Bhosale.

The project is slated have a gross leasable area of nearly 4 million square feet, with rents in the area expected to increase in the coming years, owing to its proximity to Mumbai's airport, and being located a short walk away from the Durga Nagar metro station on the upcoming Pink Line of the Mumbai Metro. The project is expected to have a dedicated entrance to the metro station. The line is slated to connect multiple other lines of the metro system, as well as both the Western and Central suburban lines.

Asked about the leasing opportunity in the area, Thirumal added that unlike Bengaluru or Hyderabad, which have tech-facing global capability centres (GCCs) and IT services as the main consumers for office space, Mumbai includes a sizeable number of banking and financial services front and back office opportunities, and a significant opportunity also exists from the many companies headquartered in the city.

Real estate observers noted that the RMZ Nexus project may bring a new lease of life to what is now a sparse and neglected location, located between Jogeshwari and the modern, teeming suburb of Powai. Thirumal added that the planned revival of the area is on the lines of the Hudson Yards neighbourhood of New York City, which was once derelict, but is now a hub for offices, restaurants, and retail. SOM was one of the architects involved in the Hudson Yards redevelopment project.

The studios were located in what was then the very outskirts of Mumbai's developing suburbs, on the edge of the lush Aarey forests, when the now six-lane Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road was a local, two-lane road. Over the years, owing to its large area and pristine natural beauty, a number of filmmakers, besides Amrohi himself, used the studios to shoot some of the most well-known films for most of the past five decades, as well as television shows.

Filmmakers such as Tinnu Anand, Rakesh Roshan, Manmohan Desai, and others, shot a number of their films, such as Kaalia, Amar Akbar Anthony, among numerous others, at the Kamal Amrohi Studios.

Over time, the studios came to be known as Kamalistan studios, akin to the Filmistan Studios in Goregaon (West), which are still active. The Aarey forests remained an attractive proposition for filmmakers, prompting the setting up of the Film City in the mid-1970s, located a short drive away from Kamalistan, also on the edge of the Aarey forests in Goregaon (East).

Kamalistan is not the only legacy film studio that is being redeveloped. In 2017, the Kapoor family sold the iconic RK Studio in Chembur, set up by Raj Kapoor, to Godrej Properties, after a fire destroyed a significant part of the studios, and damaged some of its archives. The studios were set up in 1948.

The surviving film reels were donated to the National Film Archive of India in Pune for preservation and research, while the plot was used by Godrej Properties to set up Godrej RK Studios, a premium housing project. The developers retained the original entrance to the studios, as a nod to the area's history.

RMZ's Thirumal added that the architecture of the office premises will keep in mind the area's legacy as a film and television studio, and will also include a sizeable retail portfolio, in order to fulfil the company's vision of the project being an integrated development.