Bengaluru’s residential areas are no longer the neighbours’ envy Premium

Once sought-after residential localities, prime old areas of Bengaluru are seeing rapid redevelopment, turning them into bustling commercial spaces

For many Bengalureans, Indiranagar is their weekend leisure date at its many well-known pubs, restaurants or shops. But for Jayalakshmi Sriguha, now 62, it has been home for almost half-a-century.

When she moved into their house off Indiranagar 12th Main from Ulsoor in 1977, many people asked her family members why they had chosen an area so forsaken. “I was in class 10. We didn’t know that roads were going to come up around us. This was part of a village called Doopanahalli and a laidback place. We were scared to come home after 6 p.m.,” she recalls.

The tuition teacher says she has seen the area grow before her eyes, remembering how they would marvel at the many beautiful houses being built on 100 Feet Road.

“As we were building our house, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) planted so many trees. In the 1980s, the cross roads came up and plots were sold. I got married in 1984 and moved out of the country. When I returned in 1997 too, there were quite a few empty plots. In 1999, I bought a plot 10 houses away from the house where I grew up,” she said.

She reminisces about how residents would play badminton on the road and on empty plots, and how they could see flights land and take off from HAL airport, and even the utility building - then the tallest in the city. “The BPO culture changed everything. Around the mid-2000s, it just crept under us and things just ballooned. I still don’t understand how 12th Main became a commercial access road. I still know a lot of people here, but there are very few locals. We are struggling to keep at least our road residential. I tell people this is the only place I have. It is unfortunate what it has become despite our fight. Even if it was commercial, it would have still worked if the basic rules such as parking facilities were followed,” she says, while recalling how she battled sewage backflow in her house only a few days ago.

Once a sought-after residential area, Indiranagar today is among the prime commercial hubs of Bengaluru. Its story is the same as many other prime old residential hubs of the city. With land parcels becoming scarce in the core areas of the city, real estate players across the board report massive redevelopment taking place in these prime areas.

Digbijay Das, Senior Director, Valuation Services, Colliers India, said apart from the Central Business District (CBD) region, comprising M.G. Road, Richmond Road, Residency Road, Infantry Road, Cunningham Road, Sankey Road, Vittal Mallya Road, and Ulsoor, standalone residential developments in Koramangala, Indiranagar, Jayanagar, J.P. Nagar, etc., are being redeveloped into commercial office, retail, and mixed-use development areas. “Increase in commercial activity has led to a rise in land price and this has prompted the redevelopment. Redevelopment is taking place to fulfill the burgeoning demand for commercial office space, retail, and mixed-use real estate in CBD region which is starved of vacant land for new development,” he said.