BUSINESS
Mukesh Ambani's Antilia, the 570-ft-tall skyscraper overlooking the Arabian Sea has six floors of a garage that can accommodate 168 vehicles. A car service centre has been built on the seventh floor. Three helipads have also been constructed, but they have yet to get clearance from the DGCA.
Billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence in south Mumbai, Antilia, has emerged as a symbol of architectural innovation and luxurious living. The 27-story structure, named after a mythical island in the Atlantic Ocean, was designed by Chicago-based architecture company Perkins & Will and built by B.E. Billimoria & Company Ltd at a whopping cost of $2 billion. Its present value is estimated to be $5 billion.
The 570-ft-tall skyscraper overlooking the Arabian Sea has six floors of a garage that can accommodate 168 vehicles. A car service centre has been built on the seventh floor. Three helipads have also been constructed, but they have yet to get clearance from the DGCA. Antilia boasts a 50-seat theatre, an entertainment room with advanced audio-visual systems, and a ballroom with crystal chandeliers.
The health floor houses a spa, gym, yoga and dance studios, swimming pools, and a snow room where walls emit snowflakes to beat the Mumbai heat. Inspired by Babylon's hanging garden, Antilia is equipped with lush greenery, that provides a serene outdoor space. Nine high-speed elevators are custom-made to suit the needs of family members, guests, and staff. The puja room is adorned with marble and 50 people can sit there at a time.
The top six floors of the building considered to be the second only to Buckingham Palace, are dedicated to private living space for Mukesh Ambani, his wife Nita, their sons Akash and Anant, their wives Shloka and Radhika and their children. The building has 49 bedrooms.
An army of 600 full-time employees takes care of the maintenance and upkeep of the building, with a monthly expense of about Rs 2.5 crore. Antilia consumes 6,37,240 units of electricity every month, equivalent to the consumption of 7,000 middle-class households in the city. An electricity bill of Approximately Rs 70 lakh is paid every month.
A controversy hit Antilia recently with AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi claiming that Mukesh Ambani is built on a waqf property. The Currimbhoy Ebrahim Khoja Yateemkhana, an orphanage managed by a Muslim charitable trust under the Maharashtra Waqf Board, was the owner of the land on which this magnificent building was constructed. Mukesh Ambani bought the land at the cost of Rs 21.05 crore, while the cost of the plot at that time was about Rs 1.5 billion. The dispute remains unresolved.