A 133 square feet shop in New Delhi, the capital of India becomes the most expensive store in the world to fetch close to $25,000 per month as rental. According to sources, rental of a store of the same size in the Fifth Avenue of New York averages around $20,000/month and in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay it stands at $19,500/month are believed to be the most expensive commercial spaces.
Anand Tiwari, the spokesman to New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) stated the rental for a square foot per month that is in the realm of $185 makes the store the most expensive in the country as well as in the world. The store at the Safdarjang Road of the Indian capital is reported to be auctioned by the NDMC at a whopping $24,598 towards a month’s rental. In a time the store rentals across the country is witnessing a 15 to 25% slide from the highs of second quarter of 2008, NDMC seemed to have struck gold. Interestingly, Safdarjang Road which boasts of having India’s premier medical science institute, AIIMS is not the most expensive locality of New Delhi.
Khan Market is regarded as the most expensive area of New Delhi where rent per month for a store of 133 square feet averages about $3000. The Safdarjang store opposite the AIIMS belonged to the NDMC at Mandir Marg, and the same commercial space a decade ago, according to NDMC was between $7000 and $8000.
NDMC had put up 32 units for auction along with the Safdarjang store, however other stores in various parts of the city could only draw less than $2000 per unit and there were not any bid for 5 stores out of the total. Tiwari said the reserved rental rate for the store at Safdarjung was fixed at $6100 per month. Though the store was one of the expensive units owned by NDMC, the highest ever bid astonished the authorities as well as businessmen of the locality.