The co-living space in the Indian market is expected to see major disruption as Embassy Group-owned EPDPL Co-Living Pvt. Ltd has announced to build co-living facilities in the country. The company plans to target growing migrant millennial workforce and students, said Aditya Virwani, the Chief Operating Officer of Embassy Group.
The Bengaluru-headquartered real estate developer will also offer options to the large workforce at its own office parks across India. The new business venture will be kick-started to build 20,000 beds on its existing land portfolio.
Mint, a financial daily, reported that the Embassy group has an ambitious plan of growing more than 1,00,000 owned and operated beds in the next five years. The official launch of the announced project is expected to take place in Bengaluru by year-end, followed by Pune. The company is further under the process of acquiring land in Gurugram.
"Embassy's concept of co-living aims to lift the standard of living by offering quality hospitality services to this segment. Based on extensive research in the past year, we believe that this will also complement our core business of building office parks, where half a million people work and need good housing facilities," said Virwani.
He further added: "There are more than 35 million students in higher education and the migrant millennial workforce is growing at a rapid pace, offering an opportunity to cater to this increasing demand of co-living and create accommodation for them across the country."
Till now, co-living has remained largely a fragmented market. But startups such as OYO, Nestaway, and CoHo are ready to exploit the unexplored zone. Furthermore, some of the traditional builders, including Puravankara Ltd, are also planning to foray into this business, given its rising popularity.
Kahraman Yigit, co-founder of Embassy's co-living business said: "Embassy Co-Living will bring in the best global co-living practices equipped with elegant design, sustainable green initiatives, high security and a remarkable experience for all our members. Our co-living spaces will be designed keeping in mind the evolving preferences and needs of our target customer base."
Embassy entered into building co-working spaces with the American firm We Co., that operates under the WeWork brand. In recent time, WeWork has posted healthy growth in India. Since its entry into the Indian market in 2016, WeWrok has been aggressively growing its outreach. With 23 co-working centers in India, including nine each in Bengaluru and Mumbai and another five in Gurugram, WeWork is operating 39,000 seats.
