DLF Centre Court Office for Rent, Golf Course Road Gurgaon

Start with a correction, because it is the kind that sends people to the wrong building. This page used to place DLF Centre Court on MG Road. It is not on MG Road. DLF's own website puts it in DLF 5 on main Golf Course Road, Sector 42, directly beside the DLF Golf and Country Club, about 0.1 km from the Sector 42-43 Rapid Metro station.

That matters for a tenant in a practical way. MG Road and Golf Course Road are different office markets at different rents with different tenants, and a shortlist built on the wrong one wastes a month.

At a glance

The rent, and a fifty per cent disagreement

DLF's own page offers space here from Rs 75 per sq ft a month. A second published source says Rs 50. That is a fifty per cent gap on the same building, and it is worth resolving rather than averaging.

The corridor settles it. Orchid Centre, a few hundred metres along the same Golf Course Road, lets at Rs 90 to Rs 140 per sq ft a month plus Rs 19 maintenance. A building beside the DLF Golf Club, 100 metres from a metro station, tenanted by Fortune 500 companies, does not let at Rs 50 in that market.

So treat Rs 75 as the floor of a real range and expect to be quoted above it for a fitted, upper-floor, front-facing suite. Treat Rs 50 as a number that needs an explanation before you build a budget on it: a quote from several years ago, a rate stated on carpet rather than chargeable area, a sub-let of part of a floor, or bare shell in the lower block. Any of those is possible; none of them is the rate you will be offered.

The two towers are not the same building

Centre Court is twin-towered, and the towers differ enough that the distinction belongs in your first question:

An eight-floor tower and a five-floor tower on the same plot will not command the same rent: higher floors let for more, and a building with more of them has more of the expensive kind. Ask which block and which floor before you accept a quoted rate, exactly as this research found necessary at Millennium Plaza, where two towers in one complex are quoted eleven per cent apart.

The loading, and the one building on this road that publishes it

Every rate on this page, and on every commercial page in this research, is quoted on super area. The space you can actually put a desk in is the carpet area, and the difference between them is called loading. Landlords do not usually publish both figures for the same suite, so the loading is normally a guess.

DLF Plaza Tower, another DLF building in Phase 1, publishes both: one listed unit is 10,725 sq ft of carpet against 16,500 sq ft of super area. That is a loading of 53.8 per cent — the carpet is 65 per cent of what rent is charged on.

Apply the same ratio here and Centre Court's Rs 75 becomes about Rs 115 per sq ft of carpet. We are not asserting that this building's loading is 53.8 per cent; loadings differ tower by tower, and a five-floor block shares less common area than an eight-floor one. The point is the size of the thing nobody quotes. Ask for the carpet area and the super area of your actual suite, in writing, then divide the rent by the first — it takes a minute, and it is the only way to rank a shortlist honestly.

A 19,400 sq ft plate, and who that suits

Block A's floor is about 19,400 sq ft. For scale, this research has measured plates of about 9,300 sq ft at Millennium Plaza, 23,333 sq ft at MVL iPark on NH-8, and 38,000 to 40,319 sq ft at Orchid Centre.

So Centre Court sits in the middle: large enough to house a company of two hundred people on one floor, small enough that a single occupier can take a whole plate without buying space it does not need. That is a genuinely useful size, and the tenant list reflects it — Vertex, Hewitt Associates and Fidelity Investments are named occupiers, and DLF describes the building as housing Fortune 500 companies.

Two area figures, and which one to lease against

The published areas do not agree either. The building is described as about 2.87 lakh sq ft of covered area and separately as 240,000 sq ft of built-up area, on a site of about 5.51 acres.

The 47,000 sq ft difference is almost certainly the ordinary distinction between everything under a roof, parking and services included, and the area that is actually let. It is not a contradiction. But it is a reminder of the thing that costs tenants the most money in this market: a rate means nothing until you know which area it is multiplied by.

On a 19,400 sq ft plate at Rs 75, a ten per cent difference in the measured area is Rs 1.75 lakh a month, or Rs 21 lakh a year. Get the area basis and the measurement in the lease, and have your own person check it.

What a Golf Course Road address is actually buying

Three things, and they are worth different amounts to different tenants.

The metro at 0.1 km. Sector 42-43 Rapid Metro is effectively at the door. For a firm whose staff commute by metro this is the single largest saving on this page, and it does not appear in the rent.

The address itself. Golf Course Road is where multinational occupiers in Gurugram want to be, and the DLF Golf and Country Club next door is part of why. If your clients visit, that is a real asset. If they never do, you are paying for something you do not use.

DLF as landlord. On a corridor full of strata-owned buildings with owners' associations of varying competence, a single institutional landlord running the whole asset is worth paying for — the lifts work, the facade is maintained, and there is one party to hold to the lease.

What to settle before you sign

• Which block and which floor, before any rate is agreed.
• Chargeable or carpet, and the measured area of the suite.
• What the maintenance charges cost on top. On this batch's ladder, Golf Course Road runs about Rs 19 per sq ft a month, which is roughly a quarter of a Rs 75 rent.
• Whether the quote is fitted or shell, and who pays for the fit-out.
• The lock-in, the escalation and the notice period, in writing before the deposit.

Frequently asked questions

Where is DLF Centre Court, and is it on MG Road?

It is not on MG Road. DLF's own site places it in DLF 5 on main Golf Course Road, Sector 42, directly beside the DLF Golf and Country Club, about 0.1 km from the Sector 42-43 Rapid Metro station. Various records also address it as Sector 43 or simply Golf Course Road, which is the same building under a different description.

What is the office rent in DLF Centre Court?

DLF's own page offers space from Rs 75 per sq ft a month. One other published source says Rs 50, which we do not think is the rate you will be offered: a neighbouring Golf Course Road building lets at Rs 90 to Rs 140, and a Fortune 500 address beside the golf club with a metro at the door does not sit at Rs 50 in that market. Treat Rs 75 as a floor and expect more for a fitted upper floor.

What is the difference between Block A and Block B?

Block A has eight floors and Block B has five, on a site of about 5.51 acres. Block A's plate is about 19,400 sq ft. Higher floors let for more, so a taller block carries more of the expensive space, and the blocks are also addressed differently in different records. Ask which block and which floor before accepting a rate.

How big are the floors, and how large is the building?

Block A's plate is about 19,400 sq ft, which sits between Millennium Plaza's 9,300 and Orchid Centre's 40,319 in this research. The building is described as about 2.87 lakh sq ft of covered area and separately as 240,000 sq ft of built-up area on about 5.51 acres, the difference being the ordinary one between everything under a roof and the area that is actually let.

Which companies are in DLF Centre Court?

Vertex, Hewitt Associates and Fidelity Investments are among the named occupiers, and DLF describes the building as housing Fortune 500 companies. A tenant roster of that kind matters to an incoming occupier because it is evidence the building performs: those companies audit their own premises before signing.

What does maintenance add to the rent here?

No figure is published for this building specifically. On the ladder this research has built, Golf Course Road runs about Rs 19 per sq ft a month, against Rs 18 on MG Road and Rs 14.60 in Jasola, so budget in that region and get the figure in the lease. At Rs 19 on a Rs 75 rent, maintenance is about a quarter of the headline.