Realty's next address: Spine of the North shoulders Bengaluru's future

The Bengaluru leg closes the three-part series, tracing how Yelahanka, Devanahalli, ORR, SBD, and Whitefield are reshaping the city's residential and office landscape. North Bengaluru's airport corrid

About 20 kilometres (km) from Bengaluru’s Central Business District, Yelahanka is plugged into the city by a network of flyovers slicing through the clogged northern arteries. Once a quiet cantonment suburb, it’s now riding a wave of urban development, cementing its status as one of Bengaluru’s emerging micro-markets.

 

Developers are quick to move.

 

Puravankara is rolling out Purva Aerocity, a 22.5-acre mixed-use development that’s part of a larger integrated township with 300 luxury high-rise apartments and planned office spaces.

 

A short 8 km drive further up the highway from Yelahanka, Devanahalli’s rhythm is set by the roar of planes taking off from Kempegowda International Airport. The noise is a constant reminder of the area’s strategic location. The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) is carving out a special economic zone (SEZ) here to attract information technology (IT) parks, logistics hubs, and multinational firms.

 

Yelahanka draws steady end-user demand, while Devanahalli — anchored by the airport and the upcoming SEZ — is fast becoming an investor lodestone.

 

The 1,752-acre KIADB Aerospace SEZ, flanking the airport, is expected to host marquee names like SAP, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, Mahindra Electric, Reliance, and Wipro. Locals expect the project to generate over 700,000 jobs and fundamentally alter the area’s economic base.

 

“In five years, Devanahalli won’t just house an SEZ — it’ll be an economic engine of its own,” said Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, convener of the Karnataka Home Buyers Forum.

 

Adding to the area’s draw are the 5,800-acre Knowledge, Wellbeing, and Innovation (Kwin) City project and the 280.8-km Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR), a new expressway that will link 12 satellite towns — from Hoskote and Devanahalli to Ramanagara and Bidadi — easing the city’s notorious congestion and unlocking real estate potential. Of its length, 243 km runs through Karnataka and 45 km through Tamil Nadu. 

 

“The micro-market could grow into a full-fledged SEZ within five years, powered by the airport,” said Nirupa Shankar, joint managing director of Brigade Group. “Kwin City is being positioned as a hub for global capability centres (GCCs) over the next decade. We’re developing a 75-acre mixed-use project as part of that vision.”

 

In central Devanahalli, Brigade Orchards sprawls across 135 acres — a township that combines villas, apartments, plotted developments, a resort, temple, hospital, sports complex, and senior living facilities. Since 2016, it has delivered 3,500 homes, with 1,000 more on the way, priced between ₹1.65 crore for apartments and ₹5.5 crore for villas.

 

Growth trifecta: Space, air, access

 

For all their differences, Yelahanka and Devanahalli share qualities that have cemented North Bengaluru’s place on the city’s property map. Both offer relatively smoother traffic compared to the city core, cleaner air thanks to lower density, and multiple flyovers feeding into the airport corridor. Devanahalli still offers more affordable land than the East or South, while Yelahanka scores on mature social infrastructure.

 

Yelahanka already has schools, hospitals, malls, and high-end housing in place. Devanahalli is catching up, driven by industrial projects and new townships. The only real dampener: Metro lines here are still years away, which is slowing price growth in the short term.

 

Where office crowd is heading next

 

On the office front, Bengaluru has become a magnet for GCCs and innovation hubs.

 

Colliers reports that GCC leasing has jumped from 4.6 million square feet in 2021 and is expected to hit 10.6 million square feet by 2025 — a clear sign that multinationals see Bengaluru as a long-term base.

 

The city’s four busiest micro-markets — Outer Ring Road, Whitefield, Secondary Business District, and North Bengaluru — have powered India’s Grade A office boom since 2020, making up nearly two-thirds of demand and three-fourths of new supply.

 

Traditional business zones like Koramangala, CV Raman Nagar, Inner Ring Road, Indiranagar, Old Airport Road, Old Madras Road, and Rajajinagar now share space with emerging micro-markets such as Bellary Road, Hebbal, Hennur, Thanisandra Road, Yelahanka, and Yeshavantapura, which are riding the rub-off from the airport and a burst of new infrastructure.

 

The landscape is now defined by gleaming towers and sprawling tech campuses. Philips Innovation Campus, Microsoft, IBM, Capgemini, and Oracle set the tone for the glass-and-steel skyline.

 

“With the Metro extensions and SEZ IT parks like Manyata, the North is becoming a major talent hub. The airport drives allied industries — from aviation to tech — and housing is rushing to keep pace,” said Juggy Marwaha, chief executive officer of Prestige Office Ventures. 

 

These locations are increasingly attracting mid-sized firms and GCCs despite distance and transport costs, Marwaha observed. Prestige is currently negotiating a major GCC deal at its Tech Cloud project. Rentals average ₹55–60 per square foot monthly.

 

Leasing data backs this up.

 

According to a CBRE and CII report on the state, Bengaluru is expected to hit 340 million square feet of Grade A office stock by 2030, with North Bengaluru accounting for a rising share. In the first half of 2025 alone, the city logged 11.8 million square feet of gross leasing, the highest in the country.

 

Othayoth Palliyil Nandakumar, chief operating officer of Brigade Commercial, pointed out that Bengaluru’s office stock doubled to 100 million square feet by 2013, with the North contributing 10–15 per cent of that growth, driven by connectivity and infrastructure. This led to accelerated development in the region, with key projects such as the World Trade Center playing a crucial role in this expansion.

 

“Airport access, the Hebbal flyover, Metro links, and road upgrades slashed commute times and made the region a natural logistics and IT hub,” he said.

 

Flexible workspaces and sectors like aviation, life sciences, engineering, and manufacturing are cementing the North’s role as Bengaluru’s commercial frontier. Engineering and manufacturing industries thrive thanks to proximity to the KIADB Aerospace Park and industrial corridors such as Bengaluru–Mumbai and Chennai–Bengaluru.