Antilia is a 27-floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to businessman Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries. full-time staff of 600 maintains the residence, reportedly the most expensive home in the world.

General Information

Status : Completed

Type : Personal Residential

Location : Altamount Road, off Pedder Road, South Mumbai

Coordinates : 18°58′6″N 72°48′35″ECoordinates: 18°58′6″N 72°48′35″E

Construction started : 2005

Completed : 2010

Opening : 5 February 2010

Cost : Officially $500-700m

Technical details

Floor count : 27

Floor area : 400,000 Square Feet of Living Space

Lifts/elevators : 9

Design and construction

Owner : Mukesh Ambani

Architect : Perkins & Will

Structural engineer : Sterling Engineering Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.

Main contractor : Leighton Holdings

Name and location

The building is named after the mythical Atlantic island of Antillia. Antillia, according to Aristotle, was a huge island in the Atlantic Ocean known to the Carthaginians.

The Antilia building is situated on an ocean-facing 4,532 square metres (48,780 sq ft) plot at Altamount Road, Cumballa Hill, South Mumbai, where land prices are upward of US$10,000 per square metre. In August 2008, Altamount Road was the 10th most expensive street in the world at US$25,000/sq m (US$2,336 per sq foot).

Construction

Antilia was designed by Chicago based architects, Perkins & Will. The Australia-based construction company Leighton Holdings began constructing it. The home has 27 floors with extra-high ceilings (other buildings of equivalent height may have as many as 60 floors). The home was also designed to survive an 8-richter scale earthquake.

Controversies

The transactions surrounding the acquisition of the land on which this building is constructed, as well as various aspects of the construction and design of this building seem to raise significant issues of regulatory malfeasance and corruption among the various parties involved.

In 2002, this property was purchased by a Mukesh Ambani controlled entity - Antilia Commercial Private Limited from the Currimbhoy Ebrahimbhoy Khoja Trust, in direct contravention to section 51 of the Wakf Act.

This land was owned previously by the Currimbhoy Ebrahim Khoja Yateemkhana (Orphanage). This charitable institution had sold the land allocated for the purpose of education of underprivileged Khoja children to Antilia Commercial Private Limited in July 2002 for Rs 21.05 crore. The prevailing market value of land at the time was at least Rs.150 crore.

The Waqf minister Nawab Malik opposed this land sale and so did the revenue department of the Government of Maharashtra. Thus a stay order was issued on the sale of the land. Also, the Waqf board initially opposed this deal and filed a PIL in the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the trust. The Supreme Court while dismissing the petition asked the Waqf board to approach the Bombay High court. However the stay on this deal was subsequently vacated after the Wakf board withdrew its objection on receiving an amount of 16 lakh from Antilia Commercial Pvt Ltd and issued a No Objection certificate to Mukesh Ambani.
 

In 2007 the Maharashtra government said the structure is illegal because the land's owner, the Waqf Board, had no right to sell it, as Waqf property can neither be sold nor transferred. Ambani then obtained a No Objection Certificate from the Waqf Board after paying Rs 16 lakh (U$36,100) and began construction. In June 2011, the Union government asked the Maharashtra government to consider referring the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

In regards to the three helipads, the Indian Navy said it will not allow the construction of helipads on Mumbai buildings, while the Environment Ministry said the helipads violate local noise laws. Issues have also been raised with regards to the construction of an illegal carpark

Cost and valuation

Indian media had frequently reported that Antilia is the world's most expensive home costing between $1 and 2 billion US Dollars.  Thomas Johnson, director of marketing at architecture firm Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates that was consulted with by Reliance during building floor plan design, was cited by Forbes Magazine as estimating the cost of the residence at nearly rs2000 . In June 2008, a Reliance spokesman told The New York Times that it will cost $50–$70 million to build. Upon completion in 2010, media reports again speculated that, due to increasing land prices in the area, the tower may now be worth as much as US$1 billion.

Source :  wikipedia