RMZ Crop to construct 18 star hotels in 3 years

Kolkata, Mar 04: The Bangalore-based real estate giant and theco-developer of the Rs 450 crores second major IT hub in Kolkata, RMZCrop will also construct a chain of 18 star hotels in the country by2010.

Speaking to newsmen here today, after laying the foundation ofECOSPACE, the city's second comprehensive IT hub in presence of LokSabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and External Affairs minister PranabMukherjee, RMZ Crop Managing Director Raj Menda said of the 18 hotelstwo each would come up in Kolkata, Pune and Noida by 2010 for which theland had already been identified." Now we are in the process ofpurchasing them", he said.

Stating that the five-year old company, having currently presencein five major cities, has now decided to look eastwards with the firstmajor project coming up at Rajarhat-New Town area with the constructionof Ecospace, the city's second major IT hub after Salt Lake, Mr Mendahoped that when constructed it could have employment opportunity forabout 20,000 IT professionals.

As one of the major real estate players in the country like AmbujaReality, RMZ's partner in Ecospace, we have targetted to built fourmillion square feet of built area within the next two years, Mr Mendareplying to a query about his business target.

He said so far they had built seven million square feet of spacefor aviation, housing, IT, engineering and media industries within thecountry in addition to having some minior presence abroad.

Elaborating his plan for the Ecospace, Mr Menda, flanked by AmbujaReality Managing Director Harshwardhan Neotia, said under the projecteight-ten storied building would come in an area of 20 acres of land,purchased at a cost of Rs 95 crores through an all India biddingprocess.

The entire area (of 20 acres) formed under a joint inititiave ofRMZ Crop and Ambuja Reality were equally owned by both the companieswith 50 per cent stakes each. Ther entire cost of the project, to becompleted by 2009, was pegged at Rs 450 crores which would be pooledthrough internal accruals and bank credits, Mr Menda and Mr Neotiainformed.

Ecospace when completed would also have 63 per cent open spacewith enough greenery and would have the most eco freiedly powergenerating and power saving devices, they claimed.

Incidentally, while Ambuja Reality has proposed to take itsbusiness turnover by 2010 to Rs 5,000 crores, while that for the RMZCrop had been targetted at Rs 4,500 crores which included theconstruction of 18 hotels, mostly in three and four stars types, theysaid.

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