Eldeco Group's presence in Bakshi Ka Talab, on Lucknow's IIM Road, is not a single building but an entire township. Eldeco City is a 133-acre integrated development combining plots, villas, apartments and commercial space inside a gated, boundary-walled precinct, built by a group that has been developing real estate in North India since 1975. Within this township, Eldeco City Arcade 2 functions as the retail spine, a commercial hub with shops across the lower ground, ground and first floors, most of them fronting the main internal road.
The developer's own account of Eldeco City Arcade 2 frames it around the market it already serves inside the gates: those looking for a high growth business opportunity will find Eldeco City Arcade-II as the perfect investment destination since it serves a huge captive market of over 2200 families residing in Eldeco City and almost 2000 families living in the nearby areas. That captive base is the direct result of decades of residential delivery on the same 133 acres, rather than a speculative retail bet on an empty plot.
The Eldeco group was founded in 1975 in Agra by Mr. S K Garg to professionally undertake real estate and construction projects, formed with a vision to excel on the ideals of timely delivery, ethics in business and transparency. In 1985, Eldeco Housing and Industries Ltd. went public on the Bombay Stock Exchange, a listing hailed by investors in the group's catchment area as a source of local pride. Incorporated that year, EHIL has held an uninterrupted market leadership position in major towns of UP and has had an uninterrupted dividend-paying record since 1985. Since 2006 EHIL has concentrated on its projects in Lucknow.
Lucknow itself was one of Eldeco's earliest large-format bets outside Agra. The group established a strong presence in Lucknow developing, amongst others, 300 acres in joint development with the Lucknow Development Authority, one of the first instances of Public Private Partnership in the country. That early PPP experience with the city's own development authority is part of why a project the scale of a 133-acre township on IIM Road, sitting inside Bakshi Ka Talab, could be planned and delivered as a single masterplan rather than a piecemeal series of towers.
Eldeco City sits on IIM Road, within the Bakshi Ka Talab / Mubarakpur belt of Lucknow, and is described by the developer as a self-contained residential hub. It is an exclusive 133-acre imposing township with plots, villas, apartments and commercial space within the secured environs of a gated community, marked by a grand entrance, spacious wide roads, large green parks, amenities for all age groups, and convenient shopping zones and schools. It is extremely well located on IIM Road and close to premium residential hubs such as Jankipuram, Aliganj and Vikas Nagar.
The township has been built out over multiple phases and sub-projects, each adding to the resident base that Arcade 2 now serves:
Each of these phases feeds the same walk-to-shop catchment that Eldeco City Arcade 2 was designed to serve, and the township is also within walking distance from the Indian Institute of Management, and other educational institutes like Maharshi Vidya Mandir, Central School and Bal Bharti School.
Bakshi Ka Talab has moved from a peripheral village identity to a functioning growth corridor largely on the back of one piece of infrastructure. The 8-lane Lucknow Outer Ring Road has terminal points at Bakshi Ka Talab, which boosts overall connectivity, and rental demand in the area is stimulated by good road connectivity and access to social amenities. The locality also has its own rail link: Bakshi Ka Talab railway station connects this area to important landmarks in the city.
Social infrastructure around the township is already established rather than promised. SR Institute of Management, ITM Lucknow, and Chandra Bhanu Gupt Krishi Mahavidyalaya are within a 2 km radius, hospitals such as IBR, Aarishi, and Aarogya are reachable within a 5 km radius, and Shree Shyam Market, Anand, Aliganj Plaza, and Prominent Mall are the shopping hubs within 8 km. A leisure draw sits closer still: Indraprastha Water Park, a popular destination for residents, is just a km away. The airport connection, Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, is approximately 28 km away via Durgapur-Lamua Road.
Pricing in the immediate IIM Road micro-market, where Eldeco City sits, has moved well ahead of the wider Bakshi Ka Talab average. The average price of properties on IIM Road is around Rs 6,800 per sq ft, up 17.2% in the last year. Within that micro-market, Eldeco Latitude 27 has recorded 21.4% year-on-year price growth, one of the stronger appreciation rates cited for any project on the road, and a direct reflection of the pull the Eldeco City address exerts locally.
A retail development inside an established Eldeco township is a different proposition from a standalone commercial block on a new road. The footfall, the resident count and the road frontage already exist before a single shop opens; Arcade 2 is positioned to draw on both the completed residential phases of Eldeco City and the newer ones, such as Latitude 27 and Skywalk, still being delivered on the same land parcel. For an Eldeco Group buyer evaluating Bakshi Ka Talab, the relevant comparison is not a random plot on IIM Road but this specific 133-acre address, where the developer's own residential deliveries have built the customer base that the commercial component now serves.