Published & Updated as on - 2010-02-18

DLF has sold its 15-acre property in a posh Bangalore suburb after plunging footfalls and poor margins nixed the company’s plans for a large scale-mall in the locality. The firm sold the land in Whitefields, to NetApp India for Rs 120 crore.

“The firm has decided not to go ahead with the mall project. It had earlier planned to build a retail mall on this particular land parcel, but has now decided to hive it off,” said an official privy to the development.

The move once again highlights the Gurgaon-based company’s travails in the southern states. DLF has had a run in with the two states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where it announced projects in the heady days of 2006-07. The developer has pulled out of the Bidadi Knowledge City project, estimated to cost a whopping Rs 60,000 crore last year citing difficult market conditions. With the project failing to take off, the Karnataka government returned Rs 400 crore on May day last year to DLF.

DLF has other projects in Karnataka such as a township in Bidadi (9,000 acre), development project in Jigani industrial area (100 acre), two hotels in Mysore (around 5 acre) and a retail mall in Whitefield (around 15 acre). Difficult market conditions has made realty major’s Chennai project ‘Garden City’ run into trouble, with the realtor announcing price cuts.

In February 2009, DLF has reduced sticker prices for its existing customers to Rs 2,500 to Rs 2,600 a sq. ft against the launch price of Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,200. DLF had to refund money to around 200 buyers last year.

The DLF Garden City, DLF’s first residential project in Chennai, is a 53-acre township with 3,493 apartments coming up at about 20 km south of Chennai, and 3 km off the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR). DLF’s ongoing projects in Chennai include, four residential, an IT park and a shopping mall.

With the completion time of two years, the firm was expected to invest about Rs 1,200 crore in the Whitefield mall project. DLF currently has over 500 acres land in Bangalore spread over Rajapura , Bannerghatta and Magadi. The downturn then forced the realty giant to put all projects on hold in Karnataka except for the Bannerghatta residential project.

Source: Economic Times 22/01/2010