Eldeco Group's presence in Kashmere Gate is built around a single, deliberate proposition: putting a retail and food destination directly inside the country's highest-footfall transit point. Eldeco Group launched Eldeco Junction, the first and only retail hub at Kashmere Gate Metro Station, in partnership with Kapoor Developers. The development covers 45,000 sq. ft of dedicated retail space, the first retail hub at Kashmere Gate. Work on the site began well before the public opening: the CEO of Eldeco Group noted that the project started in 2019. The formal inauguration followed in November 2021, with the launch inaugurated by Mangu Singh, MD of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, in the presence of Pankaj Bajaj, MD, Eldeco Group, and Rohit Kishore, CEO, Eldeco Group.
The design brief for Eldeco Junction was transit-oriented from the outset. Eldeco Junction is positioned as a retail and F&B hub at Kashmere Gate, India's busiest Metro Station, conceived as a transit-oriented development that combines the ambience of a high-end mall with the safety of a high street. The tenant mix reflects that everyday-commuter focus rather than a destination-mall pitch: the retail hub comprises popular brands like KFC and Market 99, already functional, alongside Skechers, Chaayos and Relaxo. A dedicated food court and civic-utility touches were built into the plan as well, with an 8,000 sq. ft food court and an Aadhaar Registration centre forming part of the offering. Design consultants engaged on the redevelopment framed the intent as civic as much as commercial: the brief was to brand the commercial space at the Kashmere Gate Metro station as a food, retail and recreational destination for commuters, youth, office-goers and families in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Kashmere Gate is not an isolated bet for Eldeco. EIPL, the group's NCR arm, invested in commercial projects in both Malviya Nagar and Kashmere Gate, Delhi, as part of the same phase of expansion. The Malviya Nagar counterpart, Eldeco Centre, illustrates the same transit-first logic applied to office space: it sits at the intersection of Saket and Malviya Nagar metro stations, spans an expansive three-acre plot, and is described as the only Delhi Metro Rail Corporation land parcel available in South Delhi for office development. That project went on to house WeWork's very first India centre, with WeWork ELDECO Centre being WeWork's first-ever India location, set within the Eldeco Centre complex in Malviya Nagar. Read together, Kashmere Gate and Malviya Nagar show Eldeco's NCR commercial arm consistently choosing metro-adjacent, high-transit sites over standalone locations, a pattern buyers evaluating Eldeco's Delhi commercial footprint can reasonably expect to continue.
The commercial case for Kashmere Gate rests on numbers few other Delhi micro-markets can match. Kashmere Gate is a transfer station connecting the Red Line, Yellow Line and Violet Line, and it is the busiest metro station in India. It also anchors road and rail traffic well beyond the metro: the Kashmere Gate DTC Terminus, Mori Gate Bus Terminal, Delhi Junction railway station, Sadar Bazar railway station, Chandni Chowk metro station and Civil Lines metro station all add to the area's accessibility. The adjoining bus terminal adds another layer of scale: the Maharana Pratap Inter State Bus Terminus at Kashmere Gate is the oldest and one of the largest Inter-State Bus Terminals in India, and it serves buses from Delhi and six surrounding states. That combination of metro trijunction, ISBT and railway station is precisely the kind of continuous, multi-directional footfall a retail-led commercial asset depends on for tenant demand and rental durability, which is the underlying reason Eldeco's Junction format is built into the station rather than beside it.
Kashmere Gate's relevance to a commercial developer is inseparable from what the area already is. Kashmere Gate is the northern gate to the historic walled city of Delhi, and today the surrounding locality in North Delhi, in the Old Delhi area, sits at an important road junction with the Red Fort, ISBT and Delhi Junction railway station in its vicinity. The Delhi Metro's own design choices underline how central the site is to the network: the station features an elevated structure for the Red Line and underground facilities for both the Yellow and Violet Lines. For a commercial project, this heritage-and-infrastructure overlap means captive daily demand from commuters, students, government offices and Old Delhi's dense trading community, an audience profile distinct from mall-catchment retail elsewhere in the city.
Eldeco Junction and Eldeco Centre sit within a much larger body of work. The Eldeco Group has been at the forefront of real estate development in North India since 1975, with a presence in cities including Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Noida, Greater Noida and other parts of NCR Delhi. With more than 35 years of expertise in construction and real estate development, Eldeco has delivered more than 200 projects spanning townships, high-rise condominiums, industrial estates, malls and office complexes. The Delhi NCR arm specifically was set up to professionalise this expansion: Eldeco Infrastructure and Properties Ltd. (EIPL) was incorporated in 2000 to undertake projects in the NCR, and in recent years has seen rapid growth in other regions as well. Current leadership continues that trajectory, with the group currently chaired by Pankaj Bajaj, an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus who has been instrumental in scaling operations and diversifying into industrial and luxury segments. For a buyer or tenant assessing Eldeco's Kashmere Gate commitment, that is the backdrop: a five-decade builder whose NCR commercial bets, at Kashmere Gate and Malviya Nagar alike, have consistently been metro-anchored rather than speculative.