India is proud about its Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) a diamond trade centre located in DREAM City, Surat, Gujarat, India, designed by the architecture firm Morphogenesis. It is the world’s largest office complex, spanning 660,000 square metres (7,100,000 sq ft), and also the world’s largest office building.
With over 4,500 networked offices and more than 67 lakh square feet of floor area, the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB) is the largest interconnected building in the world, located in Khajod village near Surat city. The office block is the largest customs clearing house in the nation and is even larger than the US Pentagon.
The SDB was planned with the intention of expanding the diamond-trading activities from Mumbai to Surat. Designed by the Delhi-based architecture firm Morphogenesis, SDB has been built on an area of 66 lakh square feet at DREAM (Diamond Research and Mercantile) city. Morphogenesis has claimed it to be “bigger than the biggest office space in the world, The Pentagon in the US”.
SDB was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year in December. It has a capacity of about 4,200 offices ranging from 300 square feet to 7,500 square feet each. The bourse has nine towers — each with ground plus 15 floors.The SDB aims to offer a one-stop shop starting from rough and polished diamonds, certification laboratories, retail outlets covering a comprehensive ecosystem of all aspects of the diamond trader.
The SDB also hosts 27 retail outlets of diamond jewellery who are nationally and internationally renowned. Apart from this, importance has been given in safety and security aspects.
The SDB already has permission to open customs houses and some banks have also shown interest in opening their branches to ensure better facilities.
Meanwhile, DREAM City, a greenfield project by the Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board (GIDB), is spread on 700 hectares at Khajod on Surat’s outskirts. Once complete, it will have all the social infrastructure like schools, hospitals, hotels, dining spaces, entertainment zones, Information Technology offices!
The latest blow has come in the form of unprecedented tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump-led US administration. Experts say that the tariff hike is reported to be hurting not just Surat’s famed diamond industry but India’s overall $32-billion gems and jewellery export market.
Hope SDB with Government initiatives will fetch innovative offers to attract more business, toake SDB great as envisioned!