Kolkata Office Space Demand Witnessed in the City Grow

Nine out of 10 office space kolkata deals were for properties below 50,000 sq ft in 2022. Only one out of 10 was in the 50,000-1 lakh sq ft size with none exceeding 1 lakh sq ft. Overall office space demand witnessed in the city grew from a little over 0.8 m sq ft in 2021 to over 1.1 m sq ft in 2022, a growth of 42% year-on-year.

Knight Frank India that conducted the study in Kolkata, the 57 deals in under 50,000 sq ft office space comprised 70% of floor space transactions that happened during the year with the remaining five deals of 50,000-1 lakh sq ft making for the remaining 30%. In 2021, around 84% of the floor space transactions were below 50,000 sq ft category with just 16% in the 50,000 sq ft to 1 lakh sq ft bracket.

Kolkata clocked the highest ratio of small office space transactions, followed by Chennai at 57% and Mumbai at 49%. The highest number of small office deals though was in Bengaluru at 247, followed by 185 in Pune.

During 2020 and 2021, the transaction volumes had reduced substantially due to the pandemic-led mobility restrictions. In 2022, the office market in Kolkata could be seen coming out of the woods. In terms of the office space demand by different sectors, the IT sector's share has grown despite the deferment of expansion plans by some players.

Within this, IT/ITeS driven markets of Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, saw more than 50% of their total office leasing by occupiers taking in excess of 100,000 sq ft. The large space take up are usually for value driven services such as R&D and GCCs, which is a sign of India's continued prowess in this area.

By LNN (Liyaans News Network)