In May, UK-based banking major Barclays leased 1,80,000 sq ft of space at Nirlon Knowledge Park in Goregaon area of Mumbai for its back-end operations. The deal was stuck at a monthly rental of about Rs 1.8 crore or Rs 95 a sq ft a month. In doing so, Barclays joined the club of other multinationals such as Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup that have back offices in the IT Park promoted by BSE-listed Nirlon.    

In fact, German banking major Deutsche Bank also moved its back offices to Nirlon a couple of years ago from Peninsula Corporate Park in Lower Parel to Nirlon. Currently, Deutsche houses four of its offices in Nirlon.  The rush is palpable. Office complexes such as Nirlon, Lighthall-B, and Nesco IT Park, have benefited the most from the record absorption that has taken place in the Andheri-Goregaon belt in 2013.    

Nearly half of the 1.35-million sq ft absorption that took place in the Andheri-Goregaon business district in the first six months of this year was because of the three projects, according to a realty consultant. The Andheri-Goregaon belt saw yearly absorption of 1.3-1.4 million sq ft of office space between 2010 and 2012, according to Cushman & Wakefield.    

This was the highest among the city's business districts such as Nariman Point, Bandra Kurla Complex, and others. The only exception was year 2012, when absorption in Lower Parel-Worli was at 1.75 million sq ft.  According to consultants, Andheri-Goregaon is also likely to beat others in office absorption this year as well.    

The major beneficiaries of the absorption in Lower Parel and Worli in 2012 were Indiabulls Finance Centre and Indiabulls One Centre, which saw a combined absorption of 6,00,000 sq ft and Peninsula Business Park in Lower Parel, which saw similar absorption last year. Nirlon is built on a factory land owned by a textile and conveyor belts maker, spread over a 23-acre plot.    

It has total constructed space of 1.6 million sq ft in phase I and II. Nirlon is building another 500,000 sq ft and 700,000 sq ft in phase III and IV, respectively.