A new Zaveri Bazar in Bandra

Bandra’s Turner Road is turning a gold leaf. Even as old bungalows are making way for new constructions, the shops in these buildings are in big demand with jewellery stores. As many as 50 upscale showrooms and jewellery boutiques dot the 500m stretch at Turner Road, with the biggest names in the business already having an outlet here, or planning one.

More than half the stores have sprung up in the past couple of years, and there’s a good chance that any new shop or sale of an old shop will add to the number.

The junction at Waterfield Road alone has eight jewellery stores — Farah Khan Fine Jewellery, AA Motiwala, Anmol, Gehna, Popley, AK Motiwala, Lalchand and Popley Eternal — and hopefuls are willing to pay a premium for space to set up new outlets.

Just down the lane, four of the five shops in the recently developed AN Chambers are jewellery stores — Decotie, Oma, Pure Gold, Razwada — and one of them went for a whopping Rs4 crore.   

“The going rate for outright sale along this stretch of Turner Road is Rs 80,000 per square foot, and the monthly rental rate is Rs 800 per square foot,” said Sunny Chawla, an investor who’s weighing offers from boutiques that want to rent his office space on the first floor of a new building. The ground floor of the same building already houses three leading jewellery brands.

The emergence of Turner Road as the favourite destination for jewellery buyers has been consistent with the decline of Zaveri Bazar’s popularity. “Discerning buyers no longer want to that travel all the way to town, when they can get the best designs, the perfect ambience, and a convenient location on Turner Road,” said jewellery designer and gemologist Farah Khan, director, Farah Khan Fine Jewellery. She added that, after the serial bomb blasts, people are avoiding going to the congested Zaveri Bazar, and instead preferring to shop at Turner Road, “where even parking is not a problem.”

While Linking Road is the destination for fashion and accessories, and Hill Road the favourite spot for value shoppers, Turner Road seems to have carved an upmarket image for itself.

“Thanks to the huge demand from jewellery stores, which have a low-volume-high-value business, the rents have risen so high that other businesses can’t compete for commercial space on Turner Road,” said a restaurateur, whose take-away eatery made way for a jewellery store six months ago. “The money we made in biscuits was no match for the money they make in gold biscuits,” he added.

If realty experts are to be believed, the Turner Road market will only grow in the years to come. “Each of the stores at Turner Road has its exclusive clientele - high net worth locals as well as NRIs - and as the market gets bigger, it attracts more customers from across the country and NRIs from all over the world,” said an industry observer.