Daily Chennai - Tamilnadu, India

Pepsi’s Nooyi books a flat in Chennai’s most high-profile neighbourhood

After AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa and Tamil superstar Rajnikanth, Chennai’s poshest address — Poes Garden — has just got some new fizz. Pepsico CEO Indra K Nooyi, No.5 on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list this year, has booked a flat here, offered by a leading builder at a record price of Rs 16,000 per sq ft.

The project, promoted by Kgeyes Residency Pvt Ltd, will have four flats of 4,100 sq ft, each costing around Rs 6.5 crore.

According to Kgeyes managing director MV Sanmugam, each flat will have three car parks, costing Rs 3 lakh each. The four-storeyed, four-flat project - one flat on each floor — is set to be complete by mid-2008, and is three plots away from Jayalalithaa’s palatial bungalow.

Nooyi, 51, was born in Madras and did her graduation from Madras Christian College. An alumnus of IIM, Calcutta, Nooyi now lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, with husband Raj and their two daughters.

Poes Garden is one of the high-end, high-security areas in the heart of Chennai — Chief Minister M Karunanidhi stays a few blocks away — where land prices have been pegged at around Rs 4 crore to Rs 5 crore per ground (2,400 sqft).

Kgeyes had earlier set a state high of Rs 15,000 per sq ft in their Boat Club area property here earlier this year. The new mark comes at a time when there has been a slight slowdown in the residential real estate sector, with a reported drop in the demand to supply ratio.

“This only proves that the slowdown is only in the suburban and peripheral areas that have been affected by zooming land prices and high cost of construction. But in high-end areas like Poes Garden, Bishop Garden, Harrington Road and Boat Club, super luxury apartments are getting booked even before the projects actually take off,” said Sohail Sarooshi, vice president, Chennai Real Estate Agents Association. Source: indianexpress

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