Technopark Grows by 4,000,000 Square Feet!

When I put together the rather gloomy wrap-up of 2012 in the previous article, one of the bright spots that I talked about was that Technopark and Technocity had made steady progress over the year, with little or no assistance from the Government. And when I talk about progress, I mean very, very significant development, of the order of 4,000,000 SF of space that's either ready to be occupied or is fast approaching that stage.

4,000,000 Square feet, sounds like a big, abstract, number? Let me put it in perspective. 

4,000,000 SF is more space than what's occupied in the whole of Infopark in Ernakulam today.

4,000,000 SF is more than 2/3 of the space promised in the much-trumpeted, but long delayed "Smart" City project. Compared to the media frenzy and Government desperation around the latter project, Technopark has been humming along with little if any of the attention and support it deserves. And we didn't need any sheikhs or camels, either (or mirages of gleaming office buildings). All reality, no hype. Probably for the better.

4,000,000 SF of space will accommodate 35-40,000 technology professionals, probably result in about Rs 4,000 Crores ($800 Million) of annual IT exports and inject upwards of Rs 1,200 Crores ($240 Million) in the local economy as disposable income and taxes.

And here it is, in concrete, steel and glass, not on paper!

Technopark Phase III - 1,000,000 SF: Ready to Occupy

The building will soon be occupied by blue-chip firms like Oracle, Accenture, Cap Gemini and ITC Infotech, in addition to hosting India's biggest technology incubator with over 50,000 SF. 

These were shot while the complex was under construction.

Photos Courtesy: Anikuttan, Robin_a_p, Sudheeshnairs and Kirantvm @ SSC Trivandrum and Technopark's official website.

UST Global Tower 1 - 900,000 SF

To get a real sense of how massive this building is, take a close look to the left of it and you'll see a concrete mixer truck being dwarfed by the giant and made to look like a tiny toy!

This was shot a few months earlier.

Photos Courtesy: Anikuttan and Kirantvm @ SSC Trivandrum

Infosys Campus 1: 650,000 SF office building and 1,000,000 SF Multi-level Car Park

Photos Courtesy: Kirantvm and Viveks @ SSC Trivandrum

TCS Campus 1 - 1,200,000 SF Development Center 

A few months ago, the entire area was crawling with piling rigs as the massive foundations for the building were built.

 Photos Courtesy: Shafi and Vjfile @ SSC Trivandrum
 

A lot of us might end up working in these buildings or at least looking at them out our windows soon.

And the next time, someone tries to condescendingly tell you that nothing's going on in Trivandrum, tell them that more business space is under construction in Trivandrum than in most US or European cities right now and more than the rest of Kerala combined!

Oh yes, there's three times as much additional space in the pipeline in these projects and in Technocity, where Infosys and TCS will add close to 10,000,000 SF between them. 

Stay tuned!