Narain Manzil Office for Rent, Barakhamba Rd Delhi

The Narain Manzil Barakhamba Road office rent per sq ft is Rs 165 per sq ft a month bare shell and Rs 190 fully furnished, for office space on Barakhamba Road in New Delhi. Rs 200 is also quoted for furnished units.

Both ends of that are published figures for the same building, which is unusual, and the distance between them is the first thing worth noticing.

Bare shell vs furnished: a Rs 25 premium, which is how it is meant to work

A furnished office should cost more than a raw one by roughly the amortised cost of somebody having fitted it out. In this market that is Rs 15 to Rs 25 a square foot a month. Here the gap is Rs 25 — bare shell Rs 165, furnished Rs 190 — which is exactly in range.

We are drawing attention to an unremarkable fact because across this batch it has been remarkably rare:

Why it matters practically: when the two numbers are comparable, you can actually decide. Rs 25 a foot a month over five years on a 2,550 sq ft unit is about Rs 38 lakh of rent for a fit-out that would cost you perhaps Rs 38 to Rs 64 lakh to do yourself at Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 a square foot. So on a five-year lease the furnished option is roughly a wash and you keep your capital; on a ten-year lease you would do it yourself. That is a real decision made on real numbers, and in most of the buildings in this batch it cannot be made at all.

Connaught Place vs Gurgaon: what you are paying for

Rs 165 to Rs 190 a foot is the dearest rent on any page we hold. Here is the comparison nobody puts in a listing:

For the money one firm spends on 1,550 sq ft here, another takes nearly 5,000 sq ft on Golf Course Extension. That is not a mispricing — it is the price of Connaught Place, and the question is only whether your business is one that gets the value back.

It usually is if your work is with the courts, the ministries, central government departments or clients who expect a CP address: litigation, policy, public affairs, parts of finance and consulting. In those trades the address is not decoration, it is part of what the client is buying, and the walk from Barakhamba Road station to your office is shorter than the walk from a Gurgaon car park. It usually is not if your work is delivered remotely or your staff are engineers — in which case you are paying three times over for a postcode nobody in your process ever visits.

The station, and why it counts for more in Delhi

The nearest station is Barakhamba Road metro, two to three minutes' walk, on the Blue Line, with Rajiv Chowk — where the Blue and Yellow Lines meet — one stop away.

That is a better rail position than anything we cover in Gurgaon apart from the MG Road malls, and in central Delhi it is worth more than the equivalent would be in Gurgaon. The reason is the alternative: driving into Connaught Place and finding somewhere legal to leave the car is the worst part of anyone's day there, and it does not improve. A two-minute walk from a Blue Line platform removes that problem for every member of staff and every visiting client, permanently.

Which leads directly to the thing to settle before the rent.

Settle the parking before you discuss the rate

This is not our usual advice — on a Gurgaon page parking is the fourth or fifth item on the checklist. In Connaught Place it is the first, because bays are the scarcest thing in any building in the area and no allocation figure surfaced for this one.

Ask how many bays come with your unit, whether they are in the building or in a shared arrangement nearby, what they cost if they are charged separately, and whether visitors can be accommodated at all. Get it in writing. A firm that discovers after signing that it has one bay for fourteen staff has a problem no rent negotiation fixes, and in CP there is nowhere to go and buy more.

The deposit is the number that catches people

At this rate the deposit stops being an afterthought.

Twenty lakh of interest-free capital handed over before anybody sits down, on the smallest unit in the building. That is more than a complete fit-out would cost on a Gurgaon unit the same size, and it is the practical reason the furnished option at Rs 190 deserves a serious look rather than a glance — it removes the fit-out spend even though it does not touch the deposit.

What the building is

An office block on Barakhamba Road in Connaught Place, let bare shell and fully furnished. High-speed lifts, 100 per cent power backup, sophisticated fire systems and round-the-clock security.

The 100 per cent power backup is worth confirming in writing rather than accepting from a listing, because in central Delhi the phrase gets used loosely and the difference between full backup and lights-and-lifts backup is whether your air conditioning runs during a cut. Ask what load is actually covered per unit.

The ladder of sizes available is genuinely useful: 1,550, 1,950, 2,550, 3,250, 5,200, 6,500 and 10,000 sq ft. A four-person practice and a hundred-person firm can both be housed, and a growing one can move up a rung without changing address or reprinting anything. In a CP building where the address is much of what you are paying for, being able to grow without losing it is worth more than it would be in Gurgaon.

Being honest about the other side: this is an old building in a conservation-sensitive part of Delhi. Expect a period block's floor plates, service cores and washrooms rather than a modern tower's, and check whether the power and cooling will carry a dense modern office before you plan a layout. Inspect the lifts and ask when they were last replaced.

What to settle before signing

• Parking — how many bays, where, at what cost, and whether visitors are covered. First, in writing.
• Carpet and super area both, in writing. At Rs 165 a foot, every point of loading is real money.
• The maintenance rate and its inclusions, quoted separately.
• What the power backup actually covers per unit, not the phrase in the listing.
• Bare shell against furnished, both quoted on the same unit, so you can do the Rs 25 sum yourself.
• Escalation and lock-in, and whether the deposit is six months or ten — at this rate that difference is several lakh.
• Who the registered owner is, and that they are the party signing.
• The occupation certificate and the dues position on that unit.

Our view

This is the one page in this batch where the numbers behave themselves. Rs 165 bare shell, Rs 190 furnished, both published for the same building, and a Rs 25 gap that is precisely the fit-out premium the market is supposed to charge. After a batch in which one Gurgaon building asked more for raw space than another did for furnished, and another loaded a floor at a hundred per cent, that is a small pleasure — and a practical one, because two comparable numbers let you actually decide whether to fund your own fit-out.

The rest is a plain judgement about place. You are paying roughly three times Golf Course Extension and half again above Golf Course Road for a Connaught Place address two or three minutes from a Blue Line platform, with Rajiv Chowk a stop away. If your work is with the courts, the ministries or central Delhi clients, that is the point of the lease rather than a premium on it. If it is not, Gurgaon will give you three times the floor and you should go there.

Two things to do before the rent, in this order. Get the parking allocation in writing, because in CP the bays are scarcer than the space and nobody publishes them. And budget the deposit honestly: eight months on the smallest 1,550 sq ft unit is about Rs 20.5 lakh of your capital, sitting idle, which is more than a whole fit-out would cost on a Gurgaon unit the same size.

For the comparisons: DLF South Court in Saket for a south Delhi alternative, Ocus Technopolis at about Rs 110 on Golf Course Road and the only building we cover that publishes its carpet area, and Vatika Professional Point at about Rs 55 to see what three times the floor looks like.

Frequently asked questions

What is the office rent in Narain Manzil Barakhamba Road?

Rs 165 per sq ft a month bare shell and Rs 190 fully furnished, with Rs 200 also quoted for furnished space. Both ends of that are published figures for the same building, which is unusual and useful. This page previously showed about Rs 170 to Rs 200 for furnished space with bare shell noted as lower — that was right, and the search simply pins the bare-shell number at Rs 165.

Bare shell vs furnished: why is the Rs 25 gap worth noticing?

Because it is what the textbook says and almost nothing else in this batch obeys it. A furnished unit should cost more than a raw one by roughly the amortised cost of the fit-out, which in this market is Rs 15 to Rs 25 a foot a month. Here it is Rs 25 — exactly in range. At DLF Plaza Tower in Gurgaon we found the opposite: a BARE SHELL unit asking Rs 128 alongside another listing at Rs 100, which tells you the spread there is about which floor and which owner rather than about finish. Narain Manzil prices the way the market is supposed to, which means the two numbers are actually comparable and you can decide whether to fund your own fit-out on the arithmetic.

How does this compare with Gurgaon?

It is about three times the price and that is the whole point of the address. Vatika Professional Point on Golf Course Extension lets at about Rs 55 a foot; Ocus Technopolis and Veritas Tower on Golf Course Road run about Rs 110 to Rs 130; this is Rs 165 to Rs 190. For the same monthly rent you could take three times the floor in Sector 66. What you would give up is a Connaught Place address minutes from a Blue Line station — which for a firm whose work is with the courts, the ministries or central Delhi clients is not decoration, it is the product.

How far is the metro from Narain Manzil Office for Rent, Barakhamba Rd Delhi?

The nearest station is Barakhamba Road metro, two to three minutes' walk, on the Blue Line — and Rajiv Chowk, where the Blue and Yellow Lines meet, is one stop away. That is a better rail position than anything we cover in Gurgaon except the MG Road malls, and in central Delhi it matters more, because driving into Connaught Place and parking there is the part of the day nobody enjoys.

What size space can I take?

The ladder of sizes available is 1,550, 1,950, 2,550, 3,250, 5,200, 6,500 and 10,000 sq ft, which is a genuinely useful range — a four-person firm and a hundred-person firm can both be accommodated, and a growing one can move up inside the same building rather than relocating. On the smallest unit, 1,550 sq ft at Rs 165, the rent is about Rs 2.56 lakh a month.

What should I settle before signing?

Parking first, and this is not the usual advice — in Connaught Place the bays are the scarcest thing in any building and no allocation figure surfaced for this one, so get it in writing before you discuss rent. Then the carpet and the super area both, the maintenance rate and its inclusions, the escalation and lock-in, the occupation certificate and the dues position, and who the registered owner actually is. And budget the deposit properly: eight months on 1,550 sq ft is about Rs 20.5 lakh, which on a Gurgaon unit that size would have paid for the entire fit-out.