India’s office hubs turn into retail hotspots as developers tap captive shoppers

New Delhi: Office clusters in cities are turning into a catchment area for retailers across Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru as India’s office buildings are increasingly doubling as retail hubs, giving brands access to a captive pool of consumers in the week while creating new shopping and dining destinations on weekends.

Developers are responding to rising demand for food, apparel, fitness and lifestyle services around large office campuses.

Dedicated retail space added within office developments jumped nearly tenfold to 15.4 million square feet in 2021-25 from the period before 2000, according to CRE Matrix Research.


The shift reflects a change in how consumers use office districts. Employees are increasingly eating, shopping and running errands where they work, while retailers are finding that concentrated office populations can generate stronger demand than traditional retail locations.

Experts said Cyber City in Gurugram helped start the trend, with food and beverage outlets performing particularly well. In apparel, athleisure and fast fashion are preferred in such developments.

“The ecosystem around the office is becoming important. Food, retail, wellness, leisure and social spaces are becoming an integral part of creating a workplace that people want to spend time in,” said SK Sayal, MD & CEO, Bharti Real Estate.

At Bharti Real Estate’s Worldmark developments, including Worldmark 2 and the recently opened Worldmark 4, 5 and 6, retail space sits below office buildings, allowing retailers to tap employees through the week and consumers beyond office hours.

Retailers said the sales opportunity is driven by a captive office audience, with customers often visiting in groups. Strong food and beverage brands can also draw consumers to office districts on weekends, expanding the catchment beyond employees.

The conversion rate is also better than a regular mall as office crowd comes in group. For shopping as well, brand say it is largely demand led.

Office-led retail is concentrated in markets with large office campuses, dense employee catchments and integrated developments. Gurgaon leads with 10 million square feet, followed by Mumbai at 8.4 million square feet and Pune at 7.4 million square feet. Together, the three account for nearly half of the 51.7 million square feet of stock tracked.

“Office developments are increasingly becoming destinations that support the way people live, work and spend their time. As employee experience and convenience become increasingly important, this convergence of work, retail and lifestyle will be central to how the next generation of office destinations is designed,” said Hardeep Dayal, President – Commercial Leasing, at BCIT Bhartiya Centre of Information Technology (BCIT).

At Bhartiya City in Bengaluru, office space and mall are part of the same campus, catering to the growing demand for retail close to workplaces.

Bengaluru is the largest Grade A office market with 277.2 million square feet, but its office-led retail stock stands at 7.1 million square feet.

“We have launched our premium café brand, Mithai by Roseate, at Worldmark 6 in Aerocity. We are looking at similar high street retail and office spaces like Worldmark for our café concept as part of our brand expansion. These catchments align well with our premium café style concept. A café works best where people are already walking past or spending their working day,” said Kush Kapoor, CEO, Roseate Hotels & Resorts.

Bird Group’s hospitality chain Roseate Hotels & Resorts plans two more outlets under its existing ‘Roasted by Roseate’ brand.

The real inflection points for office retail came during the 2006-10 IT park boom, when developers began moving retail out of leftover lobby space and into the architecture of the workplace itself.

By 2021-25, the pipeline had surged back, producing 15.4 million square feet of dedicated retail area, the highest five-year addition on record.

“With a substantial pipeline of Grade A office developments moving toward completion, India’s offices are steadily evolving from workplaces with a retail corner into retail ecosystems,” CRE Matrix has said.