Office space demand in New Delhi airport city may go up post lockdown

Current lockdown situation may trigger demand for office space in New Delhi Aero City as corporates look for ways to keep employees safe and healthy and enable business continuity due to the continuing Covid-19 crisis in India, said leading hotel and airport operators. Multiple hotel operators are exploring an option of converting a portion of hotels into an office space as round the clock availability of lodging and food will make the airport city a preferred work place at the time of crisis or lockdown like situation, say the hospitality players operating in the area. According to Ankur Bhatia of Bird group, hotels around airport might look at restructuring portion of their premises for accommodating office set ups. “Unlike present where corporates have to sign long term lease contracts with grade A office space owners and thus get into long term payment obligation, they can opt to work on monthly or weekly payments with hotel owners. Hence, there would a significant dip in fixed costs. Variable costs give you the option to alter the expenses according to market volatility,” Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director , Bird Group, which owns Roseate House near Delhi airport. According to Qdesq, a co-working platform, business continuity plan will become a cross-functional response post COVID and large head office will shrink and become ‘strategic corporate office’ for data sensitive function and core leadership team, while others being disseminated in flexible workspaces post lockdown. “Airport city can be excellent choice for companies to set up their alternate offices and disaster recovery centres as part of their business continuity plans. Airport city offer connectivity with other cities as well. While proximity to airport, the security, and social infrastructure of healthcare facilities, retail, training and conference facilities among others, airport cities can offer a compelling hedge against the risks of the city centre work space,” said Aman Kapoor, CEO, Airport Land Development, GMR Group. As per an Ernst & Young services report, post COVID commercial space occupiers will have to go for staggered working hours, shifts and days in order to address social distancing requirement.According to Jasal Shah – CEO, Managing Director of Markelytics and Velocity MR said spaces like Aerocity might witness demand if there is more clarity on rules. “Most probably, as a policy in the future, the Aerocity concept might gain demand, but at the moment there is no clear cut policy on how these self-sufficient complexes work. Hence, an Aerocity will still be counted as a city with the limits being imposed until it is operative,” he said.

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