MUMBAI, Oct. 4 -- Between January and May this year Uday Kotak, founder of Kotak Mahindra Bank, completed his purchase of multiple apartments in Shiv Sagar, on Worli Seaface, at Rs.2.71 lakh and Rs.2.74 lakh per square foot, making them one the most expensive real estate deals in the country by square footage. Kotak's purchases at Shiv Sagar amounted to Rs.416.44 crore. Seven years ago, Kotak paid Rs.1.52 lakh per sq ft to acquire Champagne House, adjacent to Shiv Sagar, from Ranjit Chougule of Indage Vintners, for Rs.385 crore. That deal too made headlines as one of the costliest realty prices of its time. With Shiv Sagar and Champagne House, Kotak now owns 0.80 acres worth an estimated Rs.801.44 crore on Worli Seaface, also known as Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Marg. In the month of May itself, Leena Gandhi Tewari, chairperson of USV Pharmaceuticals, topped Kotak's record, at a whopping Rs.2.83 lakh per sq ft, when she picked up two sea-facing, duplex apartments in the under-construction Naman Xana. Tewari forked out a staggering Rs.639 crore to own two of only 22 apartments in this 44-storey, uber-luxury tower. What is making this 2.7-kilometer stretch along Mumbai's western coast among India's most expensive pieces of real estate? This stretch was always an exclusive address, but it was eclipsed by the glitter of the Malabar Hill, Altamount Road Peddar Road, Breach Candy, Nepean Sea Road and Walkeshwar circuit, where some of the richest Indians live. "The specialty of residential plots on Worli Seaface is that each one is about 1,600 square metres. The only exception is Karuna Sindhu, a combination of three plots," says Gulam Zia, senior executive director - research, advisory, infrastructure and valuation at global property consultancy, Knight Frank. Mumbai's wealthy have been living at Worli Seaface for decades. They include Cyril Shroff, managing partner of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, who lives in a bungalow on the seaface, as does Kailash Agarwal, promoter of realty company Avighna India. Barely 500 metres from Shiv Sagar lives Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man. Isha and her husband Anand Piramal live in the diamond-themed Karuna Sindhu, worth over Rs.800 crore. It was a wedding gift to the couple from Piramal's parents, who bought the sea-facing bungalow for Rs.450 crore from Hindustan Unilever in 2012. Now the next generation of billionaires wants to drop a pin here, upping its exclusivity quotient. Parmeshwar and Adi Godrej's daughter Tanya Dubash, who serves Godrej Group as executive director and chief brand officer, and who lives on Bhulabhai Desai Road, has bought a 9,214-sq ft duplex - the balcony alone is 1,277 sq ft - for Rs.225.76 crore in Naman Xana. Dubash will have as her neighbour Barnsley Football Club chairperson Neerav Parekh and his mother Kalpana. Seema Singh, one of the promoters of Alkem Laboratories, bought a 14,866-sq ft apartment on the 30th floor of the upcoming Lodha Sea Face, for Rs.185 crore. Mumbai, the hunting ground of the rich and famous, is the country's financial capital. Together with Pune, both cities account for almost one-third of India's billionaires, pegged at 294, of the total 1,007 billionaires in India, by the Hurun India list. "Privatisation of national wealth and rapid private wealth accumulation after 1985 are among the few factors that account for the new set of billionaires emerging in India," said Prof Vamsi Vakulabharanam, associate professor of economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Sitting plum on Mumbai's western shoreline, Worli Seaface was until quite recently an idyllic promenade marked by a handful of high-rises, scattered bungalows, and the now-shuttered Worli Dairy. Its fortunes began to shift in 2009, when the Bandra-Worli Sea Link opened, transforming the area's connectivity by bringing the suburbs within just minutes of South Mumbai. Since then, policy changes have unlocked its real-estate potential, while big-ticket infrastructure projects are recasting its identity. "The dilution of stringent Coastal Regulatory Zone rules, allowing developers to add floors with additional FSI to high-rises along Mumbai's shoreline, was a game-changer," says architect Rahul Mehta. "Then there was the introduction of Development Control rules that linked road width with permissible FSI. The wider the road, the higher can one construct and add extra FSI," he says. The planned extension of the Bandra-Worli sea link all the way to Virar and beyond, where the upcoming Vadhavan Port and an offshore airport is proposed, has added to the allure of living at Worli Seaface. In a couple of years, Vadhavan and the commercial complexes that will come up around it will be only a short drive away. Once built, the Worli-Sewri Elevated Connector will link the seaface to the eastern waterfront and the Atal Setu, enhancing its profile even further. These state-of-the-art corridors will slash travel time to Navi Mumbai, where a new airport is on the verge of being inaugurated and new commercial hubs are planned. "Location, location, location holds the key to the Worli Seaface," says a realty consultant, whose business involves properties along this stretch. "With business districts no longer concentrated in South Mumbai, billionaires want to live where it is most convenient - if not equidistant - to travel across the MMR. By owning a home in Worli, these next-gen tycoons can enjoy the best of both worlds. Of course, an uninterrupted sea view is always an advantage!" Adds Zia, "Home to Mumbai's elite, Worli is no longer just desirable, it commands an extraordinary premium, thanks to its unmatched location and lifestyle. In many ways, Worli is becoming the very heart of Mumbai's luxury narrative."...