Dubai’s Sternon Group plans handover of Indian housing
Dubai based Indian investors will see a marked increase in the value of their investment due to the progress in construction of vital infrastructure projects in Navi Mumbai, developer says
The Dubai based Sternon Group announced on Tuesday that it would hand over Phase 1 of the Magic Hills Villas development in Navi Mumbai to their Non Resident Indian investors by December 2012.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of Navi Mumbai frantically executing a series of major infrastructure and development projects, including a greenfield airport that is due to be ready by 2015. There is also a 22km Mumbai trans-harbour link bridge and the Navi Mumbai Metro that are currently under construction.
“It has taken quite a while for Navi Mumbai to implement its vision of a world-class planned city, but developments taking place over the past few months indicate that the city is firmly on the way to becoming the most sought-after destination in India,” says Hussaini F Nalwalla, managing director of the Sternon Group.
“When we launched Magic Hills there was hardly any activity in the area; today almost every acre of land has been bought and our early investors have seen appreciation of nearly 120%,” he added.
Arun Kedia, managing director of Garnet Construction, a construction firm also working on the Magic Hills project, added that the mega projects had given a ‘huge’ boost to the property scene in Navi Mumbai.
He said that work on a direct exit from the Mumabi-Pune expressway to the project would be completed within 18 months, cutting the drive to the Navi Mumbai International Airport down to 20 minutes.
Projects underway in Navi Mumbai include the Mumbai Economic Development Zone, which is being developed by the Bahrain based Gulf Finance House, in partnership with the Wadhwa Group of Mumbai. The zone will have two core components, Energy City Navi Mumbai and Mumbai IT & Telecom City, spread across 1,300 acres.
An exhibition centre certified by the Indian Green Building Council and LEED will also be developed, along with a proposed Bollywood theme park.
“The flurry of activity around Navi Mumbai points to its rising stature as a city that could rival the commercial capital Mumbai as India’s ‘maximum city’,” Nalwalla said.
“Needless to say, early investors will be the biggest gainers. We expect the current property values to double in less than three years.”
Navi Mumbai is one of the biggest planned cities in the world and was developed to decongest the island city of Mumbai, which is bursting at the seams and has no more space left for development.
