Top 8 cities to see office space oversupply of 21% by 2016

New Delhi: Top eight cities of the country would witness an excess supply of office space to the tune of 21 percent over the next five years, according to a projection by global realty consultant Cushman & Wakefield.

The consultant has estimated commercial office space demand of over 180 million square feet in the next five years (2012?16) in the top 8 cities of the country, while it has projected supply at 219.6 million sq ft.

Mumbai would witness "highest demand and supply over the next five years", C&W said in a statement.

Besides Mumbai, the other seven cities are NCR (including Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida), Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.

"Based on expected recovery of the economy, partly due to global recovery, but largely due to the positive signals being sent out by the government to promote business investments, office space demand is expected to witness a positive growth of 10 percent in 2013 and 20 percent in 2014," C&W Executive Managing Director (South Asia) Sanjay Dutt said.

Mumbai would witness a demand of 44 million sq ft against a supply of 52 million sq ft, but demand and supply of office space in Bangalore has been pegged at 31 million sq ft each.

NCR would have an oversupply of 44 million sq ft against a demand of 28 million sq ft. In Hyderabad, the office supply is expected at 26 million sq ft against demand of 23 million sq ft.

The demand-supply scenario in Chennai and Pune would be almost matching. In Chennai, supply and demand are expected at 23 million sq ft and 22 million sq ft, respectively while in Pune, supply would exceed demand by one million sq ft at 16 million sq ft.

Supply and demand in Kolkatta are pegged at 14 million sq ft and 9 million sq ft, respectively. In Ahmedabad, the consultant has projected supply at 13 million sq ft and demand at 8 million sq ft.

PTI