Infosys leases 5 lakh square feet in Bengaluru

Infosys Technologies has picked up about 5 lakh sq. ft. office space in Bengaluru on lease to expand its operation in one of the largest office lease deals in the city in recent times.

The new facility at Northgate will see the company spreading its presence across the city as opposed to being concentrated in one location.

“The software major will be paying a rental of around Rs 51 per sq. ft. The lease term has a five-year lock-in period with a 15-year lease,” said three people aware of the deal.

Developed by Modern Asset Management, the Grade-A SEZ tech park in Yelahanka extends over an area of 13.3 acres and has a total built-up area of 3 million sq. ft.

“The facility can seat around 5000 employees and the lease will expire in May 2023. The new facility will go live in the first quarter of next year," said a source quoted above.

The company has its own campus spread across 81 acres in electronic city and a facility in Bhartiya City spread over 2,50,000 sq. ft., apart from presence in other major towns in the country.

Infosys is also setting up four new offices in tier II cities in a bid to be closer to the available talent pool.

The company plans to set up 1000-seat offices across Kolkata, Nagpur, Coimbatore, Vizag and Noida.

The tech major added 21,171 employees during the first quarter of 2022-23.

The total employee count at the end of the June 2022 quarter stood at 3,35,186 employees.

The Indian office space has seen a major shift in demand from large corporations with many looking to set up satellite offices across major cities. These companies have either taken space in the flexible managed office operators or set up their own offices in smaller towns as corporations adopt a hybrid work model offering employees a choice to work out of satellite premises.

Some large companies that have even taken space in flexible managed office space in tier II towns include Google, Accenture, Deloitte, Persistent Systems, Tech Mahindra, and IBM going to tier II cities.

“There is a lot of activity in the market, especially in Bengaluru with some large deals closed recently. Many funds and corporates have either acquired or are looking to acquire large land parcels in North Bangalore,” said Viral Desai, executive director-transactions, Knight Frank.

According to Knight Frank, office markets continued to see a marked and sustained increase in demand for new space.

The office space across top markets like Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai stood at 25.3 mn sq ft in H1 2022 compared to 12.3 mn sq ft.

Bengaluru, with 7.7 mn sq ft, saw the highest transacted volume and constituted 31% of the total area transacted across major markets.