Indian Hotels Company’s (IHCL) Taj Bandstand, the luxury hotel to come up at the site of Mumbai’s iconic Sea Rock Hotel, will be a 330-room property spread over two acres.
The hotel, which will have 85 apartments and multiple dining options, will be ready to welcome guests in 2028-29, the Tata group firm said on Monday.
Taj Bandstand will be located just opposite Taj Lands End in Bandra. With large convention spaces, meeting rooms, banquet halls and a total of 800-850 rooms, the combined room strength of the two properties will make this part of Mumbai a ‘micro-destination’, similar to the Jio Convention Centre in Bandra Kurla Complex.
The two properties will make the location have the single-largest concentration of rooms in one area anywhere in the country. The Westin Mumbai Powai Lake (600 rooms), Aurika Mumbai International Airport (669 rooms), Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai (543 rooms) and ITC Grand Chola, Chennai (600 rooms and apartments) are some of the other large properties in the country.
Speaking to reporters, Puneet Chhatwal, managing director and CEO at IHCL, said: “From the date of receipt of certificate of commencement, which will take a few more months, it will take 3.5 years. There is a collective will to get the project done, both from our side and the government’s side and that is how this thing reached this far.”
IHCL may tweak the building plan of Taj Bandstand to have more rooms in place of serviced apartments, but a decision on this is yet to be finalised.
IHCL intends to have a 165-metre tall structure at the site but has got clearance for only 145 metre from the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Negotiations are on for the balance 20 metre.
With the addition of this property, IHCL will have 17 hotels in Mumbai, including five under development.
Asked if Taj Lands End and Taj Bandstand will be connected with a common walkway, Chhatwal said that there is no immediate plan to do so, though he gave references of some properties outside of India, like the Fullerton Singapore featuring an underground walkway.
A motorable road, which divides the two Taj properties, leads to the 17th century Portuguese-built fort Bandra Fort.
N Chandrasekaran, chairman at Tata Sons, said: “This project has been a dream project for Tata group, for Ratan Tata in particular, and several people in IHCL for a very long time. This project is like none other. It has gone through its ups and downs. For me, this is special because it is going to be hopefully another symbol of the city of Mumbai.”
Taj Bandstand will come up at the site where the ITC-run 440-room Sea Rock hotel once stood. With the initial investment coming in 2009, IHCL has paid Rs 930 crore to acquire Sea Rock. It had a grand vision of creating a property as iconic as Taj Mahal Palace, Colaba, the flagship property of the company.
“Tata was very keen on this project…The final thing that has been presented also incorporates his comments,” Chandrasekaran added.