Smartworks leases 82,000 sq ft in Mumbai

Flexible workspaces provider Smartworks has picked up an 82,000 sq ft on lease at Fleet House, a commercial property on Andheri-Kurla road in Mumbai for total tenure of 15 years. The workspace consists of seating capacity of over 2000 and has been pre-booked by 40%. With this addition of the new center, Smartworks’ total footprint in India has reached 1.5 million sq ft. The facility is scheduled to be operational from January 2019. Some of the clients to be working out of the new Mumbai facility include Marsh Insurance and NEC. Smartworks already counts Tata Communications, Microsoft, Arcelor Mittal, Amazon, Daikin, Lenovo, Bacardi, OLX among others as its clients. “This lease in Mumbai is in line with our expansion plan across India. We are looking to expand our footprint to at least 10 million sq ft over the next three to five years, with a focus on west and south India,” said NeetishSarda, founder of Smartworks. The location, according to Sarda, is a strategic fit for Smartworks as it primarily caters to enterprises. The centre provides close proximity to business district Bandra- Kurla Complex (BKC), airport and the Western Express Highway. Smartworks recently expanded in Chennai, opening its second facility in the city following its first centre launch in Hyderabad. The company has been expanding its presence in southern and western India since the beginning of the year. With its Mumbai launch, the company has brought its total footprint in India to 1.5 million sq ft. With properties in Fleet House and Lower Parel, Smartworks’ total space in Mumbai is around 0.2 million sq ft. The company aim to add 10 more centres by the end of next year in Mumbai alone. Flexible space operators have grown rapidly in recent years, reaching a total footprint of nearly 40 million sq ft as of first half of 2018 in 16 major Asia Pacific cities including Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore. Asia Pacific region is forecast to continue to grow rapidly over the next five years, with India emerging as one of the world’s largest coworking markets by 2022, showed a recent CBRE report.