Mumbai's tallest residential building to soar 81 floors

A congested corner of Tardeo, just behind Bhatia Hospital, will be home to what has been described as India’s tallest residential tower. Construction is expected to start in three months. The proposed 81-storey Shreepati Skies will come up on a two-acre plot which is currently occupied by about a dozen low-rise residential cessed buildings built over a century ago. Today, the area is popularly called old Chikalwadi. After construction is completed in 2013, the tower will be 301 m in height, surpassing the twin towers in Tardeo’s MP Mill Compound (Imperial Towers), each of which stands at around 265 m and 60 storeys. The developer, Shreepati Group, is taking advantage of Development Control Rule 33(7) which offers a floor space index of 4 for rehousing existing tenants in new buildings on a portion of this land. The developer will use the remainder of the plot to set up the tower and sell the property in the open market. The project cost has been pegged at Rs 500 crore and that the developer has already received the consent of 70% of the tenants to redevelop the property. The project was recently embroiled in litigation after some tenants approached the Bombay high court against the redevelopment. However, the court has now given the green light to the project. The Shreepati Group has also constructed the 45-floor Shreepati Arcade, which is currently the tallest occupied residential building in the country. The Chikalwadi project has already received civil aviation and environmental clearances. The BMC has given preliminary approval for construction up to 60 floors in the first phase. The developer will have to rehouse the existing 550 tenant families in 300 sq ft tenements each in new buildings. Of these, 240 tenements will be handed over free of cost to MHADA for low-cost housing. The Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur recently completed a four-and-a-half month wind tunnel test after the developer approached the institute. The test was mainly a structural calculation analysis done by a team led by professor Rajeev Gupta to find out whether such a tall tower could withstand high wind speeds. The residential building will be resistant to earthquakes and winds of up to 250 kilometres per hour. Sources in IIT -Kanpur said the project has been okayed by the study team. The first seven floors will serve as parking for 300 cars. The top floor will have a helipad.
Mumbai's other sky scrapers:
Planet Godrej (Jacob Circle) 180 metres
Oberoi Woods Tower (Goregaon east) 170 m
Shreepati Arcade (Nana Chowk) 161 m
RNA Mirage (Worli) 158 m