Date:23/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/08/23/stories/2008082351820200.htm

Back Mumbai’s Phoenix Mills to set up mall, IT park in Chennai

R. Balaji

Chennai, Aug. 22 The Mumbai-based Phoenix Mills, a leading developer of malls and retail space, is setting up a Rs 850-crore mall and IT park in Chennai.

According to company officials, the company is setting up a 2.5-million sq ft mall and IT Park at Velachery, a major destination in the southern part of Chennai for retail space with major IT developments happening in the neighbourhood. The company had sometime back acquired 17-18 acres from the pharmaceutical company Raptakos Brett here.

The project, Phoenix Market City, will have 1.7 million sq ft of retail space designed by leading architects Rockwell, New York. It will have an 8-10 screen multiplex, 5-6 department stores, a large hyper-market, a home store format and one food court, apart from a fine dining restaurant, officials said.

The IT Park will be spread over six lakh sq ft and the contract has been awarded to JMC Projects. The facility will also have a hotel, Chennai’s first Shangri-La, the Hong Kong-based hotel chain with which Phoenix Mills has a hotel management agreement. Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is an international group that manages over 53 hotels in the five-star Shangri-La brand and the four-star Traders brand.

Phoenix Mills has announced plans to set up commercial projects in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Raipur, Agra and Indore. The company has a 30 per cent stake in EWDPL India Pvt Ltd, a mall space developer that concentrates on Tier – II towns and cities.