BENGALURU: Google is leasing about 1.2 million sqft of office space in Bengaluru from commercial developer Bagmane Group, people familiar with the matter said. The deal will be one of the biggest this year in the country's largest office market. The lease would add to the tech giant's real estate portfolio in Bengaluru, where it has existing arrangements of 50,000 sqft with RMZ and another 0.1 million with Bagmane, which it leased almost four years ago. The latest deal is for Bagmane's Rio Business Park on Outer Ring Road (ORR), over a 9 acre land parcel. Already, 0.5 million sqft of Rio is under construction, with further growth potential of 1 million sqft, according to the realtor's website. The ORR stretch has become the hub for a gamut of multinationals including JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Cisco, Intel and Accenture.
Google and Bagmane managing director Raja Bagmane could not be reached for comment. Going by traditional standards, the space Google is leasing will be able to house about 12,000 people. It could not be immediately ascertained what the California-based company plans to do in this new space. The company is known to be hiring large numbers for a semiconductor unit that is working to develop chipsets in areas like on-device machine learning. The building is likely to become operational in another three years. The search-engine behemoth is expected to pay a lease rental between Rs 75 and Rs 84 per sqft per month, which would translate to an annual outgo of Rs 120 crore. Google also has presence in Hyderabad, Gurugram and Mumbai. The facility in Hyderabad, where it invested Rs 1,000 crore, is the largest owned by the company outside its headquarters.
February 27, 2020