THE POWER OF PERSISTENCE

Amit Jain, chairman & managing director, Arkade Developers, joined his father's real estate pretty early on in his career. While his father entered the world of real estate in 1985-86 with single stand-alone buildings, Amit quickly learnt the ropes and joined his father after completing his graduation from Mithibai College.

- JAYASHREE KINI MENDES

The young Amit has since then taken the company to greater heights and recently even launched its IPO – something that many seasoned developers have refrained from. He speaks to JAYASHREE KINI MENDES and tells us about his journey and the stringent discipline his company follows that has led to its success today. In his words, Amit tells us the growth story of Arkade Developers.

NEW ENTRANT

Early on, the company was mainly into stand-alone buildings and that continued for some time. While land was not scarce as it is now, it was still not easy. While today we have earned a reputation as experts in redevelopment, it was only in 2005 that we acquired our first redevelopment project in Kandivali. I feel a great sense of pride when I think that we have executed several projects in Borivali, Kandivali West and East, altogether mainly in the western suburbs. It was in 2009 that we ventured into the south Mumbai market.

Around 2012, we extended our reach to develop projects in the far western suburbs of Vasai and Virar. Our massive project in Virar, wherein we acquired FSI from HDIL, was a project of 1300 units by the name of Acropolis.

SOME LEARNINGS

The business of real estate is not only very interesting, but also intriguing. One comes across various kinds of people and need to be on one’s toes. The rules in real estate keeps on changing and they are ever evolving. Today, rules pertaining to CRZ (environmental protection) are quite stringent. One has to be agile and adaptive when scouting for land.
People might talk about our success. But for us, success is seeing the broad smiles on the faces of our buyers when we hand over the apartment to them. Here, timely possession is key and a quality product. We have always adhered to our timely delivery promise. Similarly, keeping the people in my organisation happy and content makes all of us happy.