YOO and ICONIQA Join Forces for Hotels and Branded Residences
In an exclusive, ICONIQA’s Arjun Baljee and YOO’s Jagdish Johal reveal a collaboration pairing design-led brands with hospitality management, as Baljee’s three-decade fascination with Philippe Starck comes full circle.
By Rupali Sebastian
Arjun Baljee is happy to do “the dirty work”. In his new association with YOO, that means running the hotels, servicing the residences and making the designer address deliver on its promise. The Founder of ICONIQA and Jagdish Johal, Managing Partner, YOO, reveal the collaboration exclusively to SOH. It pairs the Philippe Starck co-founded company’s design-led brands with ICONIQA’s operating expertise, with scope for standalone hotels, serviced residences and developments combining both. India offers immediate opportunities. Johal is already looking further afield.
For Baljee, the affinity predates the operating proposition by several decades. His fascination with Philippe Starck and Ian Schrager’s boutique-hotel work began during his college years. Following Starck’s career brought him to YOO, which the designer co-founded with property entrepreneur John Hitchcox in 1999. Now, a brand he has long admired has become a business partner. Johal’s reasons for choosing ICONIQA are equally personal. He points to Baljee’s involvement, his team’s passion and a shared preference for giving projects individual character. “It’s personal. We’re not mass,” he says.
The India story
YOO already has a substantial Indian residential story. Panchshil’s yoopune comprises 228 Starck-designed residences across six towers; its YOO Villas offers homes designed by Kelly Hoppen for YOO. Also in Pune, YOO One brings Sussanne Khan’s design sensibility into the portfolio. The wider presence includes YOO Hyderabad, DN YOO Odisha in Bhubaneswar and Dalcore’s The Falcon in Gurugram, a YOO Inspired by Starck collaboration.
The new association builds alongside those developer relationships. Johal explains that Panchshil’s standalone YOO residences already provide services under YOO’s brand standards. ICONIQA could manage residential services where required, while the partners see particular potential in bringing hotels and branded residences together. “The opening here is the next step. It’s the next evolution,” he says.
For Baljee, whose own lifestyle proposition is established at ICONIQA Mumbai, the association advances an ambition to offer developers a family of hospitality brands. Johal identifies YOO2, YOO Collection and By YOO among the possibilities, with the brand and designer selected to suit the project. For developers, that opens a conversation about the format, market and customer they want to serve. Commercial arrangements will be considered project by project: developers bring the real estate, YOO the design proposition and ICONIQA the management. At this stage, Baljee describes it as a brand alignment rather than a uniform investment model.
In residences, the operating brief reaches into daily life: housekeeping, laundry, a restocked fridge or help when friends come over. Some services could be included in regular charges; others would be paid for as used. Services introduced at an existing YOO development would sit under its existing brand. Technology would help connect residents to that offer. Baljee describes an app-based YOO platform through which they could request housekeeping or room service, or have their car brought from the parking area to the entrance. The proposed convenience is familiar from hotels; the task is to make it work just as readily at home.
The new association builds alongside those developer relationships. Johal explains that Panchshil’s standalone YOO residences already provide services under YOO’s brand standards.
Residence design for life
The harder question is how to sustain that promise after the homes are sold. Baljee distinguishes between a developer who sells the inventory and exits, and one who wants an operating residence that can retain its appeal and grow in value. Developers and buyers need to understand the service commitments and what it will cost to maintain them. A branded residence needs an operating model that lasts beyond the sales campaign. Johal neatly captures the longer obligation: “a design for a hotel is for a stay. When you design for a residence, it’s for life.”
On the hotel side, Baljee identifies a northern Indian property intended to become a YOO2, which he describes as a mid-price lifestyle offering. Its name and opening date were not disclosed in the interview. Metros and holiday destinations are in consideration, alongside smaller cities.
Johal is keen to loosen the automatic association between branded residences and high-end living. The ambition, he says, extends across Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Alongside YOO2’s mid-price positioning, that points to an opportunity across budgets as well as locations.
Baljee questions whether those city classifications adequately reflect their potential. Social media, he argues, has people aspiring to the same product in Ranchi as in London. YOO’s presence in Bhubaneswar already gives that outlook a foothold. International expansion produces a small difference of opinion over pace.
“I think it’s early days. No?” Baljee offers. Johal is having none of it. “We’re going to go global. We’re going to go very fast.” Then, a promise to his new partner: “I’m going to be dragging him everywhere.”
