Commonwealth village apartments ready

The Commonwealth Games Village luxury apartments are ready and Emaar MGF, the developer, has begun handing them over to DDA.

The Commonwealth Games Village luxury apartments are ready and Emaar MGF, the developer, has begun handing them over to DDA.

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The residential project on the banks of river Yamuna will house athletes and officials for the Games that will be held from October 3 to 14, 2010.

“We have begun the process of handing over the apartments to DDA,” said Shravan Gupta, executive vice-chairman and managing director Emaar MGF.

The project, with 1,168 apartments, was to be built on a public-private-partnership model between DDA and Emaar MGF which won the right to develop the 118-acre residential project in competitive bidding from DDA at Rs 321 crore against a reserve price of Rs 300 crore.

As per the arrangement, DDA got ownership over one-third of the apartments over and above the Rs 321 crore from the developer. Emaar MGF was to retain ownership of the remaining 790 apartments which it expected to sell in the open market and raise money.

However, last year’s financial crisis and realty slump meant the company couldn’t find buyers and raise money. It asked DDA for a bail out which it got—DDA purchased another 333 apartments for Rs 770 crore.

“Market conditions are improving. There has been a robust demand for quality residential projects,” said Gupta. He claimed the company has managed to sell a major portion of these apartments.

After the games are over the developer would refurbish the apartments and physically hand over the apartments to end-users by early next year.