Lodha sells flat in Altamount Road building at a record Rs160 crore

The Jindal family that runs pharama firm Jindal Drugs has bought a 10,000-sq feet duplex flat in Lodha Altamount, a high-end tower in Mumbai's upmarket Altamount Road, in what is touted as the biggest apartment deal in India.

The luxury tower is under construction and the Jindals, currently residing in an upmarket locality in south Mumbai, plan to shift once the building is complete in the next 18 months.

At Rs160 crore, the 10,000-sq ft flat costs a record Rs1.60 lakh per sq ft. Sources familiar with the transaction said the family has already paid about 30 per cent of the amount.

This is one of the costliest residential property deals after industrialist Cyrus Poonawalla paid Rs750 crore in September for the former palace property at Breach Candy, which once housed the US Consulate (See:Cyrus Poonawala buys former US Consulate for Rs750 cr).

The Jindals had also paid the highest price when they bought their present SoBo flat in 2012 at Rs 1.20 lakh a sq ft.

Past residential deals in Mumbai have touched upwards of Rs 1.25 per square feet in landmark buildings like Samudra Mahal at Worli and Ill Palazzo at Hanging Gardens.

"We are pleased that the highest price in the country has been achieved in our project. This proves that there is a high demand for high-quality products," a Lodha spokesperson said.

The duplex apartment is on the 34th and 35th floors of the 40-storeyed tower, which includes 8 podium levels of parking and 53 residences. Construction has been completed until the 24th floor for the core level and 14th for the slab. The project is expected to be completed by April 2017.

The luxury residential project is coming up on land that once housed Washington House, a US consulate property. The Lodhas had bought the building in 2012 from the US consulate for Rs375 crore.

The property, incidentally, is also located close to Mukesh Ambani's Antilla tower.

In 2013, leading glassware company Borosil bought a sea-facing apartment in Samudra Mahal at the rate of Rs 1.23 lakh per sq ft (Rs 21 crore) from the Poonawalla family . It was then the highest-priced apartment deal in India.

Altamount Road is home to several celebrities and businessmen. Altamount Road with the neighbouring areas of Carmichael Road and Malabar Hill are counted among the most expensive addresses in the world and properties here are coveted by the who's who in Mumbai. However, such transactions are one-off deals and does not reflect general market sentiments.