Rustomjee to Build Luxury Residential at Parsi Trust Sea-facing Mumbai Property

The Parsi trust has sold its prime, sea-facing bungalow property at Bandra Bandstand to the developer for Rs 350 crore. In late October, Imperial Infra, a Boman Irani-led Rustomjee Group firm, concluded the sale agreement with the Trust for the 1-acre plot near Taj Land's End Hotel. The trust has received Rs 234 crore from the sale with part of proceeds going to the suburban collector as collector's fee. The trust will get back a built-up area of 12,000 sqft free of cost when the builder redevelops the land. Rustomjee is reportedly planning a luxury residential tower there. Realty deal makes Parsi trust richer than BPP in corpus The deal for the property of the Bandra Parsi Convalescent Home Trust was registered a few days ago and around Rs 17 crore was paid as stamp duty. The trust had invited bids in 2019, but it took two years to finally conclude the deal because of the Covid-induced lockdown. There were only three bidders, of whom one was disqualified. The two that remained in the race were Rustomjee and Runwal Developers, whose offer was just over Rs 100 crore. The land deal makes the Bandra Parsi trust now richer than the Bombay Parsi Punchayat (BPP) in terms of corpus. Although the BPP controls land and buildings worth thousands of crores, its corpus is just about Rs 117 crore. The plot currently contains a dilapidated early 20th century bungalow, which was once used as a convalescence home for poor women and children from the Parsi community. It shut down around 15 years ago due to poor occupancy. The trustees said the annual interest earned from the money will be used to expand the trust’s charity work for the Parsi Irani community. The decision to sell the prime property was also due to the high ground rent charged by the collector, who increased it from Rs 4,600 a year to Rs 16 lakh. The trust found it “unaffordable”.