MGF Metropolitan Mall Office for Rent, MG Road Gurgaon

The MGF Metropolitan Mall office rent per sq ft is Rs 95 to Rs 110 per sq ft a month for office space in MG Road Gurgaon — Rs 95 fully furnished, up to Rs 110 for space marketed as premium.

Two things about this building matter more than that number, and they point in opposite directions.

The metro station is at the door. Not five hundred metres, not a short walk — MG Road metro station sits between this mall and DLF City Centre, one on either side of it. That is the best rail position of any building we have covered in this batch.

And the loading is brutal. One office unit marketed here offers 50,000 sq ft of super area against 25,000 sq ft of carpet. A hundred per cent load. You pay for two square feet and you occupy one.

Rs 110 is not Rs 110

Gurgaon offices normally load 30 to 40 per cent — you pay for about 1,350 sq ft to occupy 1,000. A hundred per cent load means you pay for 2,000 to occupy 1,000, and it changes the entire comparison.

Read that last column, not the first. On the unit we found, this is not the cheap MG Road option that a Rs 110 headline suggests — per usable foot it is the most expensive building in the comparison, dearer than Golf Course Road.

Two honest caveats. The loading figure comes from one marketed unit, not from the building as a whole, so another floor may be better; and the comparison loads for the other buildings are the Gurgaon norm rather than figures confirmed unit by unit. Which is exactly why the instruction is not "avoid this building" but get the carpet and the super area in writing on the specific unit, and do the division yourself before you compare anything. A super-area rate on its own is not a price.

In a mall, a rent quote without a floor is meaningless

The office band is the narrow part of this building's story. Here is what the same address charges:

That is a 6.4-times spread inside one address. It is not a negotiating range and it is not a reflection of quality — it is four different products that happen to share a postcode. In a mall you are not renting floor area, you are renting visibility, and the rent follows the eyeballs rather than the square feet.

So when somebody sends you a rate for "MGF Metropolitan Mall", the useful questions are: which floor, and can the road see it? Until you have those two answers you do not have a price. And if you are a retailer who read Rs 185 as the retail rate, understand that the units worth having on this road are the ones at Rs 700.

The station is the reason to be here

The nearest metro station is the one outside the building. MG Road metro station has a mall on each side of it: DLF City Centre on one, MGF Metropolitan on the other. The Delhi Metro Yellow Line runs through it, which puts central Delhi on a single train.

If your staff commute by metro, or your customers do, this is worth paying for and it is worth more than a nicer lobby. Gurgaon's last-mile problem is real and expensive: a station half a kilometre away in June is an auto ride, a cost and a reason people are late. A station at the door is none of those things.

It also means footfall. Two malls either side of one station generates the kind of passing traffic that a customer-facing office — a clinic, a travel desk, a training centre, a recruitment office — actually converts. If your business does not benefit from footfall, you are paying for something you will not use, and Golf Course Extension will rent you more floor for less money.

A twenty-plus-year-old mall, and the record does not agree how old

Business listings say this mall opened in 2004. A mall directory dates the MGF mall on this site to 1998. We could not reconcile the two, and we would rather tell you that than quietly pick whichever suits the page — it is the same problem as the acreage figures below, and it is a symptom of how loosely these three MGF malls are recorded. Either way it belongs to the wave that made MG Road India's first real mall cluster, and that has two consequences worth being plain about.

The good one: a mature mall is a known quantity. You can walk it on a Tuesday afternoon and a Saturday evening and see the tenant mix, the footfall and the state of the common areas with your own eyes. You cannot do that with a building that is still being sold on a render, and this batch is full of buildings whose published numbers do not survive division.

The other one: expect a twenty-plus-year-old building's services. Inspect the air conditioning, the lifts, the escalators, the washrooms and the basement yourself, and ask when the chillers were last replaced and who paid. In a strata-owned mall, big capital repairs are decided by an owners' association and funded by a levy, so "who pays for the new lifts" is a question with your name in the answer.

Maintenance, and why it is bigger here

No maintenance figure for this mall turned up. Ask for it in writing before you discuss rent, and expect it to be higher than an office building's rather than lower.

An office tower runs lifts, common lighting, security and a DG. A mall runs all of that plus escalators, common air conditioning across a much larger public area, a food court's services, cleaning to retail standards and far heavier footfall on every surface. For reference from buildings we hold pages on, Orchid Centre on Golf Course Road charges about Rs 19 per sq ft a month and Paras Trinity about Rs 18 — and those are offices. On a Rs 110 office rate a Rs 20 maintenance is a fifth again; on a super area twice your carpet area, you are paying that fifth on floor you cannot use.

Ask what it covers: air conditioning in your hours, common-area power, the DG, water, security, lift and escalator AMC, property tax, and how the sinking fund for capital repairs works.

Metropolitan vs Metropolis vs Megacity

MGF has three malls on MG Road and their names read alike. This is worth more care than the usual naming warning, because the sources themselves get it wrong.

While researching this page we found the same specification — 3.5 acres, 318 units of 400 sq ft — attributed to two different MGF malls by different publishers, and one mall directory that treats Metropolitan and Metropolis as the same building, giving it 8 acres, 5,00,000 sq ft and a 1998 launch. Different listings place the same mall in Sector 25 and Sector 28. One source gives MGF Metropolis 2.52 acres, another 3.5, another 8, while MGF's own site describes it as 8,00,000 sq ft; only the last pair of those figures is consistent with the others, since 8,00,000 sq ft on 3.5 acres would be a floor-area ratio no Gurgaon mall carries.

A note on Megacity's two area figures, because we drafted this page claiming more from them than they support. MGF publishes about 4,00,000 sq ft built against about 2,00,000 sq ft saleable, and it is tempting to read that 50 per cent as corroboration of the 100 per cent load found here. It is not. Built-to-saleable and carpet-to-super are different measures: built area includes basements, parking and plant that were never going to be sold to anyone, and a 50 per cent built-to-saleable ratio is ordinary for a mall. The loading on the unit found at Metropolitan is a separate and much more unusual figure, and it stands on that one listing alone. Which is the whole reason the instruction on this page is to get the carpet and super areas in writing on your own unit rather than to generalise from anybody's published totals — including ours.

The rates across the three run from about Rs 65 to about Rs 110, a 70 per cent spread, and all three are "MGF, MG Road". Confirm the mall name on the draft lease deed and on the maintenance bill — never on the listing heading, which is written by whoever wants your call.

What to settle before signing

• The CARPET area and the SUPER area, both, in writing — and divide them yourself. This is the first question here, not the fourth.
• Which of the three MGF MG Road malls, on the draft lease deed.
• The floor, and whether MG Road can see the unit — the rent depends on it more than on anything else.
• The maintenance rate and its inclusions, and how the sinking fund for capital repairs works.
• Parking bays for your unit, written in — mall parking is shared with shoppers.
• The condition of the services: air conditioning, lifts, escalators, and when the chillers were last replaced.
• Escalation and lock-in, and whether the deposit is six months or ten.
• Who the registered owner is — MGF, or the investor who bought the unit.
• The occupation certificate and the dues position on that specific unit.

Our view

The station at the door is a genuine, permanent advantage that no rent negotiation on Golf Course Extension can buy, and for a business whose staff or customers travel by metro it is the best argument on this page. The loading is a genuine, permanent problem: on the unit we found, Rs 110 of super area is about Rs 220 of usable floor, which makes this dearer per working square foot than the Golf Course Road towers rather than cheaper.

Both things are true, which means there is no view to take on the building — only on the unit. Ask for the carpet area first, do the division, and then decide. If the floor you are offered loads at 40 per cent rather than 100, this is the best-located office in Gurgaon at the price. If it loads at 100, you are paying Golf Course Road money for a 2004 mall and should say so.

And whatever you are quoted, confirm which mall it is for. Three MGF malls on one road, rates from Rs 65 to Rs 110, and publishers who attribute one building's specification to another.

For the road and the comparisons: the MG Road property hub, Salcon Platina at Rs 100-125 with the interchange at 0.3 km, JMD Regent Arcade on the same road, and DLF Plaza Tower at Rs 100-128 with an institutional landlord.

Frequently asked questions

What is the office rent in MGF Metropolitan Mall MG Road Gurgaon?

Offices let at about Rs 95 per sq ft a month fully furnished and up to Rs 110 for space marketed as premium, plus maintenance. That band is for OFFICE floors. Retail in the same building is a different market: roughly Rs 185 a foot, about Rs 250 on the ground floor, and as much as Rs 700 for a shop facing MG Road. So the address tells you very little and the floor tells you almost everything.

Why is retail here six times the office rate?

Because in a mall you are not renting floor area, you are renting visibility. An office on an upper floor is a room with a door; a ground-floor unit facing MG Road is a shopfront seen by everyone on one of Gurgaon's busiest roads and everyone leaving the metro station next door. The rent follows the eyeballs, not the square feet. The practical consequence is that a quote for this building is meaningless until you know the floor and whether the road can see the unit — a 6.4-times spread is not a negotiating range, it is four different products in one address.

What is the catch on the area?

The loading, and it is severe. One office unit marketed here offers 50,000 sq ft of SUPER area against 25,000 sq ft of CARPET — a 100 per cent load, meaning you pay for two square feet and occupy one. Gurgaon offices usually load 30 to 40 per cent. On that unit, a Rs 110 super rate is about Rs 220 per usable foot, which is dearer than Golf Course Road. Get both numbers in writing before you compare this building with anything, because the super-area rate on its own is not a price.

How far is the metro from MGF Metropolitan Mall Office for Rent, MG Road Gurgaon?

It is at the door. MG Road metro station sits between this mall and DLF City Centre, with one on either side of it — this is the best rail position of any building we have covered in this batch, better than Orchid Centre's 200 metres and in a different category from the 3.5 km at Paras Trinity. If your staff or your customers arrive by metro, that is the single strongest argument for this address.

How old is the building, and when did it open?

Somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-eight years old, and the public record does not agree on which. Business listings say it opened in 2004; a mall directory dates the MGF mall on this site to 1998. We have not been able to reconcile the two, and we would rather say so than pick the flattering one. Either way it is a building from Gurgaon's first mall wave, which cuts both ways: a mature mall is a known quantity you can walk on a Tuesday and a Saturday and judge with your own eyes, and it is also a building whose chillers, lifts and escalators are somebody's capital problem. In strata ownership that somebody is you, via a levy. Inspect the services yourself and ask when the plant was last replaced and who paid for it.

Is this the same as MGF Metropolis or MGF Megacity?

No, and this is worth more care than usual because the SOURCES themselves confuse them. MGF has three malls on MG Road — Metropolitan, Metropolis and Megacity — and while researching this page we found the same figure of 3.5 acres and 318 units of 400 sq ft attributed to two different ones of them. Different listings also place the same mall in Sector 25 and Sector 28. Office rates across the three run from about Rs 65 at Megacity to about Rs 110 here. Confirm the mall name on the draft lease deed and on the maintenance bill, not on the listing heading.