HDFC Bank has renewed the lease for an entire office building that houses its head office on Dr Annie Besant Road in Mumbai’s Worli locality at a monthly rental of Rs 1.45 crore.

The lease tenure for the office where the bank’s top officials sit is set at 36 months, taking the total rent payout to over Rs 52.2 crore.

The commercial property, Sandoz House, with a basement, ground floor and eight upper floors has a total 64,872 sq ft space. The office building has parking slots for 40 cars.

HDFC Bank has paid Rs 3.79 crore as security deposit for the lease, as per documents accessed through real estate data analytics firm CRE Matrix.

The lease transaction between the bank and the landlord, Dr Syedna Taher Saifuddin Memorial Foundation, was registered on September 29.

The deal values rentals at this property at Rs 224 per sq ft, in line with the rentals in the vicinity for properties such as Ceejay House, Poonam Chambers and Shiv Sagar Estates.

Commercial properties in this vicinity house headquarters and corporate offices of some large Indian companies and global entities including financial services firms Barclays Corporate & Investment Bank, Credit Suisse AG, Nomura Financial Advisory & Securities (India).

ET’s email query to HDFC Bank remained unanswered until the time of going to press on Monday.

Despite the much-talked about emergence of the work-from-home option and hybrid model following the outbreak of Covid19 pandemic last year, several occupiers and tenants of large commercial complexes across the country are renewing their lease agreements.

These renewals of existing leases including several large deals like HDFC Bank that have been concluded recently are an indication that even large corporate entities continue to either retain or increase their physical offices presence.

According to industry experts and commercial real estate developers, the renewals are a strong indicator towards pickup in demand activity once substantial workforce returns to office. Developers are also witnessing existing tenants continue to consolidate and expand their presence in most of the micro markets across the country.

India’s office transactions recorded a strong quarterly growth in the September quarter, despite a much more severe second wave of Covid19 infections and the looming threat of a third wave.

The total office space absorbed across major cities was at 12.5 million sq ft during the quarter, representing 168% year-on-year growth, showed data from Knight Frank India.

With corporate India taking significant steps toward resuming work from office, aggressive rate of vaccinations along with fewer restrictions on mobility, improved the business environment is supporting a recovery to market traction levels seen in pre-pandemic times.