RMZ Crop to construct 18 star hotels in three years

Kolkata, Mar 04 (UNI) The Bangalore-based real estate giant and the co-developer of the Rs 450 crores second major IT hub in Kolkata, RMZ Crop will also construct a chain of 18 star hotels in the country by 2010.

Speaking to newsmen here today, after laying the foundation of ECOSPACE, the city's second comprehensive IT hub in presence of Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, RMZ Crop Managing Director Raj Menda said of the 18 hotels two each would come up in Kolkata, Pune and Noida by 2010 for which the land had already been identified." Now we are in the process of purchasing them", he said.

Stating that the five-year old company, having currently presence in five major cities, has now decided to look eastwards with the first major project coming up at Rajarhat-New Town area with the construction of Ecospace, the city's second major IT hub after Salt Lake, Mr Menda hoped that when constructed it could have employment opportunity for about 20,000 IT professionals.

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

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

Elaborating his plan for the Ecospace, Mr Menda, flanked by Ambuja Reality Managing Director Harshwardhan Neotia, said under the project eight-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 bidding process.

The entire area (of 20 acres) formed under a joint inititiave of RMZ Crop and Ambuja Reality were equally owned by both the companies with 50 per cent stakes each. Ther entire cost of the project, to be completed by 2009, was pegged at Rs 450 crores which would be pooled through internal accruals and bank credits, Mr Menda and Mr Neotia informed.

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

Incidentally, while Ambuja Reality has proposed to take its business turnover by 2010 to Rs 5,000 crores, while that for the RMZ Crop had been targetted at Rs 4,500 crores which included the construction of 18 hotels, mostly in three and four stars types, they said.

UNI