Chennai firm beats China bid, takes Adyar Villa land for Rs 400 crore

CHENNAI : It was meant to be a big ticket entry by a Chinese player into the Chennai real estate market. Country Garden, one of China’s top three township developers, was a few months ago on the verge of acquiring a 60-ground (1.44 lakh sqft) parcel of land that was once part of the landmark Adyar Villa in Kotturpuram.
As the Chinese major dithered, however, Chennai-based Appaswamy Real Estate quietly moved in and clinched the deal for Rs400 crore with property developer TVH in one of the largest realty transactions in the city in recent times.

The land, a premium residential locality nestled in a sweeping river bend, was originally part of the 18-acre Adyar Villa, owned by industrialist A C Muthiah’s family before TVH in 2009 purchased it for nearly Rs 120 crore.

‘Deal done, big move by Appaswamy’

“It’s a done deal and a big move by Appaswamy builders,” an industry source told TOI. “The sale price is sweet for TVH too, since Country Garden had offered a cash component of around Rs200 to Rs220 crore, with TVH as a local partner for development. The higher premium Appaswamy offered should be seen from the context of approvals being in place and enhanced road width fetching higher FSI.”

Being a premium location, the acquirers are likely to promote high-end luxury apartments. Appaswamy Real Estate CEO T S S Krishnan declined to comment.

“More than a year ago, Country Garden was very bullish on the Indian realty market and had entered into around 10 MoUs for large land parcels in premium locations across Indian cities. However, over the pastfew months, ithas suddenly gone slow on most MoUs, including the one with TVH in Chennai,” the industry source said.

Soon after buying the land in 2009, TVH, owned by former Tamil Nadu transport minister and DMK strongman K N Nehru’s family, wanted to promote a multistorey residential project. The frontage of the land parcel did not meet the criteria required for such a project, sothe promoter’s clout with the then DMK government helped to get the road widened. But the project never took off and, as a double blow, the DMK was voted out in the 2011 assembly election and failed to return to power in the 2016 election.