Mumbai: The city’s lucrative real estate market has always been a safe haven for Bollywood bigwigs to invest their millions and buy marquee properties. The hunky heartthrob Salman Khan is one of them. TOI has learned that the Khans (Salman’s family) plan to build a hotel on a prime, sea-facing plot at Carter Road, Bandra.

Building plans approved by the BMC and accessed by this newspaper show a 19-storey hotel; the plot once housed the residential Starlet CHS, where the Khans had purchased apartments and had initially planned to redevelop the property into a residential building. However, the family seems to have changed their plans. The proposal to build a hotel was submitted over a year ago in the name of the actor’s mother, Salma Khan, who is shown as owner of the property.

The Khans’ architect, Sapre & Associates, submitted a revised amended plan under the city’s new Development Control & Promotion Regulation (DCPR-2034), for a “commercial centrally air-conditioned building with a height of 69. 90 metres”.

It includes three-level basements, the first and second floors for a café and restaurant, the 3rd floor for a gymnasium and swimming pool, the 4th floor as a service floor, the 5th and 6th floors for the convention centre, and the 7th to 19th floors for hotel use.

When contacted for a comment, a spokesperson for the actor said she would check with his office and revert.

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Mumbai: Bollywood star Salman Khan’s family plans to develop a prime Carter Road plot into a multi-storey hotel. In 2011, Salman’s father, veteran scriptwriter Salim Khan, told TOI that he buys properties all the time for his family, including his son (Salman).

There is no sign of construction on the family’s plot yet, though a building stands there which will have to go to make way for a hotel.

Action hero John Abraham is another Bollywood personality believed to be heavily invested in real estate. In 2009, he bought a prime plot at Union Park near the Petit school from a Parsi family, the Rattanshas. A source close to the actor said Abraham has no immediate plans to build on the plot.

Actor Hrithik Roshan and his father Rakesh are big investors in the city’s property market, picking up luxury apartments in prime locations. In 2020, the actor bought three floors in a residential tower on the Juhu Versova link road for close to Rs 100 crore. The Roshans have also invested in commercial properties mainly in the western suburbs.

Early this year, the legal heirs of Bollywood legend Raj Kapoor monetized his one-acre bungalow property in Chembur for Rs 100 crore. It was bought by Godrej Properties, which had also purchased the Kapoor-owned R K Studios nearby.

Director and screenwriter Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra of Rang de Basanti and Bhag Milkha Bhag fame lives in the plush residential enclave of Pali Hill and cycles to his office/studio in a refurbished, restored almost century-old bungalow in Pali Village.

Recently, Mehra told this correspondent that he had an offer to add more floors to his bungalow property. However, he refused. Mehra had bought the property from a Catholic family in Pali village, which still retains some of its original charm as an urban village although illegal constructions and new high-rise buildings have marred its beauty.

Two years ago, actor Ajay Devgn bought a bungalow spread across 474. 4 sq m at Juhu for Rs 47. 5 crore.

“Real Estate investment has always been the first choice for almost all celebrities including the film industry in India,” said Chetan D Narain, president & CEO of Narains Luxury Properties India.

“It’s safe, secure and offers a sense of a very stable holding. While capital appreciation or rental returns may not be as high as equity or other investments it’s always been an aspirational choice,” he said. “The Bollywood fraternity has made some wise choices in the past and even recently for their financial stability by buying Grade A luxury properties,” said Narain.

Back in the 1940s and the 1950s, when the Indian film industry began to flourish, leading actors and filmmakers would purchase large bungalows in far-flung suburbs like Malad, Chandivli, and later Juhu and Bandra where the big studios were located.

Film historian Rafique Baghdadi said in the post-partition period, film stars bought bungalows in isolated places whenever they made money. Later, the focus shifted to Marine Drive, Bandra and Juhu. Dilip Kumar moved to Pali Hill to stay in a sprawling bungalow, while Pran lived in the same locality.

In the late 1960s, the late Bollywood superstar Rajesh Khanna moved into a bungalow at Carter Road, Bandra, which became a landmark. Named Ashirwad, the bungalow became a popular tourist spot and attracted the kind of attention that Shah Rukh Khan’s bungalow, Mannat, at Bandra Bandstand, gets today.

Rajesh Khanna had bought the bungalow from another Bollywood legend, Rajendra Kumar, and had it rebuilt in the 1980s. It was once attached by the income tax authorities after Khanna defaulted on payments, but he managed to clear his dues and reclaim it.

After Khanna’s death, the bungalow was bequeathed to his daughters, who later sold it to an industrialist for a reported sum of Rs 90 crore in the year 2014.