Workday has secured a lease for 194,000 square feet in Chennai to establish a global capability center, marking one of the largest enterprise office commitments in the city with Brookfield Properties.
As per the lease documentation from Propstack, the arrangement between Cowrks and Workday consists of two phases featuring different commercial structures. In Phase I, Workday is leasing 100,000 sq. ft. as a managed office across the 3rd and 4th floors of Building 1C at Millenia Business Park, at an all-inclusive monthly rate of Rs. 310.8 per sq. ft. This rate covers warm shell rent, CAM, capex rent, OPEX, signage, and parking charges.
Phase II entails an additional 94,029 sq. ft. under a standard lease model, in which Workday will be responsible for fit-outs at its own expense, with a warm shell rent of Rs. 98 per sq. ft., according to the document.
A source familiar with the deal noted, “Cowrks had granted a Right of First Refusal (FRR) to Workday for extra space in the nearby Building 1B. Although an FRR notice was issued in January 2026, Workday has not yet opted for this addition; however, future expansion could still be in the cards.”
Workday’s choice to set up operations in Chennai, especially at the Millenia Business Park in Perungudi, comes after its initial presence in Pune and a smaller footprint in Mumbai, which has since been expanded to a 15,315 sq. ft. managed office at GBKC.
Brookfield Properties, which owns Cowrks, refrained from commenting before publication.
Chennai has emerged as a strategic location due to positive return-to-office trends and supportive state policies, including incentives tied to job creation. “The overall lease spans seven years, with Phase I set to start in June 2025 and Phase II in February 2026. Workday anticipates evaluating further expansion as its GCC operations develop,” a second source familiar with the transaction indicated.
Enterprise cloud application provider Workday is entering Chennai’s commercial office sector.
“With nearly 200,000 square feet, this represents one of the largest single-occupier GCC office commitments recorded in Chennai in recent quarters, indicating that it is a substantial operational hub rather than just a satellite office,” said Raja Seetharaman, co-founder of Propstack.
While Workday’s primary base in India is in Pune, it has not publicly detailed the specific functions or workforce planned for the Chennai center. However, experts suggest that the lease’s scale implies significant engineering, product, or service delivery operations will be housed there. Industry standards for IT-grade GCCs typically suggest that such a footprint can accommodate between 1,500 and 2,500 seats, depending on the workplace density model used.
