Prestige Estates Projects Limited — the Bengaluru-headquartered, NSE-listed developer with over three decades of residential, commercial and retail development across India — made its first move into Chikkamagaluru in Q3 FY26 (the quarter ended December 2025). The company added new land parcels across Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Chikkamagaluru, expanding its presence into both established urban centres and emerging growth corridors. The specific Chikkamagaluru acquisition sits in the Indavara locality. This is a materially different kind of bet for Prestige: not a metropolitan IT corridor play, but a deliberate step into a hill city whose residential demand is being shaped by Karnataka's growing appetite for second homes and nature-proximate living.
The Indavara parcel is part of four land additions cumulatively covering 85 acres during Q3 FY26, forming part of the company's broader strategy to strengthen its long-term development pipeline across key Indian real estate markets. Prestige has not yet disclosed project-level specifics such as unit counts, configurations or pricing for the Chikkamagaluru parcel — the company has stated the land parcels will be utilised for a mix of residential developments, aligned with its focus on mid-segment, premium and select luxury housing projects.
Prestige Estates has delivered over 300 projects and currently has around 140 projects in its pipeline. That track record spans apartments, villas, plotted developments, malls, office parks and hospitality assets across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, Kochi, Mangalore, Pune, Goa and Ahmedabad. The company recorded a pre-sales figure of ₹30,024 crore in FY26, up 76 percent from the preceding year. The Chikkamagaluru land acquisition is part of this expanding pipeline, and its inclusion in investor presentations for FY26 signals that the developer is treating this location with the same rigour it applies to tier-1 markets.
The company's total land bank now spans 1,080 acres, with a Prestige economic share of 883 acres, providing development visibility across multiple cities. Within that context, the Indavara acquisition introduces a geography that Prestige has not historically operated in — a hill district rather than a coastal or metro market — which makes it one of the more distinctive entries in the company's FY26 land strategy.
Indavara sits approximately 2 km north of the Chikkamagaluru district headquarters and around 6 km from the main city centre, at an elevation of roughly 906 metres above sea level, approximately 236 km from Bengaluru. It is a locality within the Chikmagalur Taluk and falls under the Chikkamagaluru assembly constituency. National Highways NH-173 and NH-169 are reachable from Indavara, and the locality sits near the Bhadra and Yagachi rivers.
The choice of Indavara rather than the city core is consistent with how plotted or villa-format developments tend to be positioned in hill towns: close enough to town amenities, but with enough open land to allow low-density residential layouts with natural surroundings intact. Chikkamagaluru is located on the foothills of the Chandra Drona Mountain range of the Western Ghats and attracts visitors for its hill station climate, tropical rainforest and coffee estates. The city sits at an elevation of 1,090 metres above mean sea level, making it the third-highest city in Karnataka. For a developer positioning a product in this terrain, the altitude and topography are tangible, marketable attributes rather than abstract branding.
Chikkamagaluru's road connectivity to major Karnataka cities is the principal access mode. The best route from Bengaluru is via NH-75, a journey of approximately 243 km that takes around 4 hours without significant traffic. NH-173 passes through the town, connecting it to the port city of Mangalore approximately 150 km away. State Highway 57 links the city to Mysore via Hassan to the south and to Shimoga via Lingadahalli to the north.
A railway line connects Chikkamagaluru station to Kadur Junction. The nearest international airport is Mangalore International Airport. Chikkamagaluru does not have its own airport; Mangalore serves as the closest air access point. Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation provides inter-state, inter-city and intra-city bus services to the city. For buyers who will primarily use this as a second residence or long-weekend home, the Bengaluru-to-Chikkamagaluru road journey via NH-75 represents the most practical connection.
The expansion into Chikkamagaluru fits a pattern visible across Prestige's FY26 land strategy: the company continues to prioritise land acquisitions that offer scalability, infrastructure access and demand visibility, supporting phased project launches over the medium to long term. Chikkamagaluru offers something the company's metro acquisitions cannot — a genuinely distinct product category. Demand in this district is driven not by employment catchment or metro connectivity, but by clean air, coffee-country landscapes and the growing preference among Bengaluru and Mangalore households for owned holiday homes in the Western Ghats.
The pristine Baba Budangiri lies to the north of Chikkamagaluru, where it is believed that Baba Budan introduced coffee to India. Nearby landmarks from Indavara include Mullayanagiri (approximately 4 km), Kemmanagundi (approximately 26 km), Kudremukh (approximately 27–28 km) and Belur (approximately 25 km). From the Indavara locality itself, attractions such as Mullayanagiri and Z Point are within roughly 3–4 km. This cluster of natural and heritage destinations within a short drive is part of what makes Indavara a considered choice for a residential product rather than a speculative land bank.
Prestige Indavara is the developer's only tracked project in Chikkamagaluru as of mid-2026. Given the early-stage nature of the acquisition — secured in Q3 FY26 — formal configuration details, unit sizes and pricing are yet to be announced. What is known is that the parcel is in Indavara, that Prestige has earmarked it for residential use, and that the project name has been registered as Prestige Indavara.
For a buyer evaluating this, the relevant reference point is the developer's established approach to lower-density, nature-proximate projects in Karnataka — a format the company has deployed at various scales across the state over the past decade. The company's chairman Irfan Razack has noted that Prestige's focus on quality, location and timely execution continues to resonate with customers across its key markets. A Chikkamagaluru buyer should expect that same approach to be brought to a geography where the land itself — the elevation, the coffee estate backdrop, the proximity to the Western Ghats — is the primary asset, not the urban infrastructure around it.