Realty major adds school to its portfolio

This move is in line with the trend of developers in Tamil Nadu setting their sights on building infrastructure projects in previously untapped regions – with an aim to attract more commercial and residential investments to these parts, thereby creating a larger urban ecosystem outside the city limits. 

Kids Central is a Cambridge International School, providing primary and secondary education to close to 430 students with 80 teachers in classes from pre-KG to class 9 at present. Giving us an overview of the school project, Chandrakant Kankaria, Director, Olympia says, “Across the board, in mature markets, such as Bengaluru, you have large townships coming up. 

And to create ecosystems around these townships, you need schools and other infrastructural amenities coming up, so that offices and educational institutions are just a walk away. So, when this proposal from Kids Central to become a part of our Panache project came along, we got excited. It adds a great long -term value as the creation of a school contributes to building other infrastructural ecosystems in any region. 

Of course, there were substantial challenges in the beginning. If you go by commercial formula concerning cost of land, construction and returns, it doesn’t work. This project has must be looked at from a big picture perspective.”

As construction partners, a substantial investment has been made by Olympia in this project. The school will be run and managed by Kids Central, while the asset will be owned by Olympia as part of its portfolio. 

He breaks down the cost as, “The land is about 3.5 acres and 1.20 lakh square feet is to be constructed. Land in OMR costs anywhere around Rs 10 crore an acre, which makes it worth Rs 33 crore. 

At the rate of Rs 2,000 per square feet, we are looking at Rs 22 cr in construction cost. So Rs 55-60 cr is what is earmarked for this project. This school project is being undertaken on a 27 acre-land, where usually 2,700 homes would come up, no matter which developer takes it up. Here there are only 123 homes as it’s a villa project, which is of an exclusive and high value nature. Close to 40 families have moved into Panache already.”

 “We are looking at a long-term perspective – eight to 10 years down the line as schools takes its own time to come of age. Olympia is into the business of creating rental properties (like Olympia Tech Park). We are also working on a couple of schools that will be a rental stream. We are making large investments in co-living spaces too. Close to half a million square feet of non-IT stock is what we want to develop as a portfolio and Kids Central also strategically fits this profile.” 

Valli Subbiah, Founder of KC High, a non-profit by the Chetana Trust, tells us, “The new school campus is slated for completion in October 2017. Logistically, by Jan 2018, we can expect the current set of students to have also completed the migration to the new school. Special care will be taken to provide safe transportation for children commuting from the city. Also, school timings will be changed to non-peak traffic hours. The new campus can accommodate as many as 1,200 students.”