Apple India renews 3 leases for office in Mumbai

Apple India Private Limited, has renewed its lease for 15,925 sq ft of commercial space spread across three floors from Agni Commex LLP for a period of almost five years in Mumbai, registration documents accessed by Propstack showed.

The lease documents were registered on September 8, 2021.

The project is located in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) business district. It is an integrated development with five office towers, a drive-in theatre and an under-development luxury mall.

It has leased the sixth floor in Maker Maxity’s 5th North Avenue building. The chargeable area is 8,927 sq ft at Rs 400 per sq ft per month with an escalation of 4% every year. A security deposit has been paid for a period of nine months. The lease begins from October 15, 2021 and expires on May 31, 2026.

The lease was earlier signed on October 2016 at a rate of Rs 325 per sq ft per month. The last rent was paid at the rate of Rs 374 per sq ft per month.

The company has also renewed its lease for the seventh floor of the same building. The chargeable area of 4,094 sft has been renewed at Rs 402 per sq ft per month with an escalation of almost 4% every year. A security deposit of nine months has been paid for the same. The lease starts from June 1, 2021 and expires on May 31, 2026 and is for 60 months.

The 8th floor lease for a chargeable area of 2904 sq ft has been renewed at Rs 400 per sq ft per month with an escalation of almost 4% every year. A security deposit of nine months have been paid. The lease is from June 1, 2021 until May 31, 2026 which is for a period of 60 months.

There was no response from Apple India Private Limited.

“Considering that Apple may be opening their first offline retail store in Maker Maxity mall, it makes perfect sense for them to have an office within the project. The terms are in line with the market and renewals have been strong in most grade A projects in BKC. It’s relatively difficult to relocate or downsize front office space as compared to back office as you need to factor dynamics related to senior management and cross functional leaders,” said Raja Seetharaman, co-founder Propstack.

Management consulting firm Mckinsey as well as Russell Reynolds have recently signed new deals and renewal respectively in the same project.

The former had taken up 45,000 sq ft office space at the same commercial project (Maker Maxity) at a monthly rent of Rs 410 per sq ft. The tenure of the lease was five years. The rented office space is spread across four floors of 1 North Avenue tower.

Maker Maxity is one of the top Grade A buildings in the defacto CBD of Mumbai – The Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). This building houses reputed tenants such as BNP Paribas, Macquarie Group, UBS, LinkedIn, to name a few.

The top tenant profile gives this building an inherent advantage to command rentals higher than the micro-market average.

The ongoing current rentals of Grade A buildings in BKC are in the range of Rs 260 – Rs 270 per sq ft per month and Maker Maxity certainly commands a premium,” said Bappaditya Basu, Chief Business Officer – ANAROCK Commercial.

“With the second COVID wave now receding and vaccination drive gaining pace, people are slowly coming back to offices and large-scale leases in the heart of Mumbai certainly indicates that the long-term story of the Indian office market is still intact. Whilst remote working worked as a make-shift arrangement, working professionals are fatigued of working from homes that were not designed for long-term WFH,” he told Moneycontrol.

Also, the collaboration, discussions, brainstorming, and client interactions are much better when done in-person and so offices will slowly and steadily call back all the employees, albeit in a cautious manner, he added. Moneycontrol