Sri Lanka’s economic challenges from 2021 to 2023 adversely impacted the real estate sector, causing construction delays, stalled projects, and rising costs. Amid these disruptions, Altair Residences emerged as one of the few large-scale, high-end projects completed on schedule, delivering a fully finished asset before inflation and accelerated currency depreciation took hold.
In July this year, Altair underwent a change in ownership and management, now attracting apartment buyers seeking fully completed units in a landmark building, alongside blue-chip tenants.
TWC Development Management (Pvt) Ltd, the real estate advisory arm of TWC Holdings led by Chairman and Founder Thilan Wijesinghe, played a pivotal role in supporting this acquisition. The company advised Altair’s new owners, Blackstone India, on financial and technical due diligence, market analysis, regulatory review, and long-term asset strategy.
Today, a senior team from TWC continues to provide strategic management oversight of Altair. In this role, Wijesinghe shared insights with Echelon on the property’s value proposition.
How does Altair’s current pricing compare to new luxury apartment projects in Colombo?
In my view, Altair’s position is exceptionally strong. The building was completed just before construction costs surged in the post crisis period, so buyers can acquire a finished, ready-to-move-in asset at a more attractive price point. New luxury apartment projects must now factor sharply higher input cost, creating a rare opportunity for both investors and end users.
The numbers illustrate this clearly. We are able to price our completed apartments at about 25–35% less per square foot than a similar high-end apartment project coming to market today. This effectively allows buyers to obtain today’s product at yesterday’s cost.
What makes Altair particularly appealing in terms of apartment size and livability?
Beyond pricing, Altair also offers large apartment formats that were common prior to the economic crisis, when the exchange rate was between Rs120–150 and buyers sought a sense of space. At Altair, three-bedroom units range from 1,600 to 2,100 square feet, whereas post-crisis developments have reduced three-bedroom sizes to around 1,200 square feet to hit specific price points. Even two-bedroom apartments are substantially smaller than pre-crisis developments.
In addition to the per square foot pricing advantage, we consider liveability to be equally important. With large-format layouts that have all but disappeared in the post-crisis market, Altair offers something rare today: a home you can truly live in with the largest balconies of any development.
Therefore, a residence at Altair is not just an investment product. It is a genuine home designed for people who want to live in a spacious area in an unmatched location, making it an exceptional choice for buyers seeking both lifestyle and value.
Global and local blue-chip brands choose Altair to showcase their products. What does the arrival of these flagship tenants mean for prospective homeowners and investors?
Altair has around 40,000 square feet of retail space, which was unoccupied when TWC was engaged.
We decided to avoid standard retail formats repeated elsewhere and instead asked a more fundamental question: what defines a “premium” offering and attracts footfall from Sri Lankan consumers? The answer was clear, taking the form of iconic automotive brands from prestigious corporates, as well as premium F&B outlets.
Therefore, we invited blue-chip companies such as DIMO, Hayleys, John Keells, and Kia Motors to showcase their automotive offerings on the podium level, thereby reinforcing the building’s own positioning as Colombo’s most recognisable address. On the first floor, our focus will be to invite carefully selected F&B offerings and set up a co-working space. We were careful to ensure that retail offerings would not in any way diminish the architectural integrity of the building, which remains Sri Lanka’s only residential tower designed by a world-renowned architect
How does the partnership with Blackstone strengthen Altair’s position in the market?
Indocean Developers (IDPL), the developer behind Altair Residences, was acquired by Blackstone India through South City Projects (Kolkata), IDPL’s parent company, which owns one of India’s most prominent retail destinations.
Therefore, the remaining inventory of IDPL’s apartments now belongs to a reputed institutional shareholder, bringing credibility and stability to the developer. Buyers of Altair apartments stand to benefit from the value-enhancing, safety-focused improvements made to the building, as well as the transparent management and resident-first approach that an institutional investor ensures.
In addition to the purchase consideration, shareholders have already injected about $2 million to upgrade the building, thereby enhancing value for current and future apartment owners.
For someone considering Colombo as a regional base or a long-term investment, why is Altair the logical choice?
Unlike many high-end residences that rise from within mall complexes or dense commercial hubs, Altair is surrounded by an organic mix of cafés, restaurants, and neighbourhood conveniences such as supermarkets, cinema, and hospital. Altair is therefore positioned to revolve around community rather than commercial establishments.
With Colombo’s emergence as a highly liveable city regionally, Altair occupies a distinctive vantage point: an architectural masterpiece unlike any other in South Asia, situated in an idyllic, central lakefront location. For investors and residents alike, apartments at Altair are a scarce commodity: large format living within an iconic building available at a price point below replacement cost. Quite simply, Altair is a one-off investment opportunity to own a home in an architectural masterpiece unlikely to be recreated in Sri Lanka in the foreseeable future.