Kamal Ghorui
CHENNAI: Glass façades, retail arcades and office blocks may soon line the city’s Phase-II metro corridors. To achieve this, the Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) will develop 73.4lakh sqft of commercial property across at least 37 locations.The large-scale property push is aimed at monetising land parcels to boost non-fare box revenue and improve financial sustainability of the expanding metro network. Officials say several of the proposed buildings will either be integrated with station entry structures or located a few metres away, creating commercial clusters around transit nodes and potentially increasing daily footfall.
Among the prominent sites identified are the posh locality of Boat Club, the heritage stretch of Kutchery Road, Sholinganallur along the IT corridor, and key transport nodes such as Mandaveli, Vadapalani and Alandur.Within walking distance of Kapaleeshwarar Temple, an integrated four-storey building is planned at Kutchery Road, on a nearly 22,000 sqft plot with more than 43,000 sqft of built-up area at an estimated cost of ₹16.47 crore. The structure is designed to connect directly with the underground station.In the periphery of Boat Club residential area, a standalone fourstorey commercial building with a basement is proposed on an 8,200 sqft plot, offering more than 17,000 sqft of built-up space at a cost of ₹6.59 crore. Two additional integrated buildings are planned nearby.
“In Phase-II, we will start construction first in Mandaveli terminus-cum-bus depot. We will also initiate work soon in Vadapalani and Alandur. We plan to issue a designand-build contract for each of the properties,” a CMRL official said.In Phase-I, CMRL began work on a 27-storey ‘central tower’ near Central Station and an eight-storey multimodal complex at Broadway, while also leasing commercial spaces within stations. However, Phase-II marks the first time the agency is undertaking large-scale development outside station footprints, like metros in Delhi and Bengaluru.Delhi metro developed integrated residential complexes in several locations and IT parks with blocks each comprising eight floors, and planned a 29-storey residential property in Janakpuri West. It has a wellentrenched property-development programme to monetise station-area land. Bangalore metro is catching up. It has planned multiple projects, such as an 11-storey mall in KR Puram.
R Ramanathan, former CMRL director and adviser to Nagpur Metro, said non-fare revenue is crucial for metro viability. “No metro service can function with just revenue from ticket fares because these are highcost projects… the transit is planned with properties and space for commercial exploitation to generate as much non-fare box revenue as possible, as long as it doesn’t affect operations,” he said, adding that integration and parking access will determine market success.
Sivasubramaniam Jayaraman of ITDP said such projects can strengthen ridership if mobility remains central. “Easy and safe access to the station is critical. If people have to negotiate traffic, unsafe crossings or poor pedestrian infrastructure, the whole purpose of transit-oriented development is defeated,” he said.Urban planner Karthikeyan Baskar said denser development within 500m of stations could reshape commute patterns. “The major point of transit-oriented development is to boost public transport. Commute patterns will change, and the number of private vehicles on road will reduce. But pedestrian infrastructure around these areas must improve. Otherwise, people will come in their personal vehicles.”
