last leg: Dunlop House at Mirza Ghalib Street. Picture by Kishor Roychowdhury

A landmark for 69 years, Dunlop House will soon pass into the annals of history as the 57B Mirza Ghalib Street address gets set to house a new-age shopping mall.

The mall will be built by Mustak Hossain, who owns Pataka Industries that makes Pataka bidi. He has bought Dunlop House from the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) for Rs 10.75 crore.

According to Hossain, the deal for the property, which has long been the headquarters of Dunlop and witnessed many a corporate struggle, was struck about one-and-a-half years ago.

The entire property has to be revamped to suit modern-day needs. ?Parking of cars is a real problem at Dunlop House. We will have to rebuild the house keeping that in mind,? Hossain told reporters today.

The Pataka group will construct a six-storeyed building ? to be named Pataka House ? covering 86,000 square feet. The first three floors will house a shopping mall with an area of 56,000 square feet. The fourth and the fifth floors will be used as the corporate headquarters of Pataka Industries.

Hossain refused to divulge any more details, but said a well-known Singapore-based company will design the building.

The Pataka group will either sell off the space for the mall or give it out on lease. ?We are talking to a lot of people who are keen to set up a shopping mall in the building,? he said.

Dunlop began its Indian journey in 1898. The company set up shop in Mumbai selling cycle tyres. In 1928, it shifted to Calcutta and floated Dunlop India Limited. The sterling company also appointed its first Indian director on its board ? Roy Badridas Goenka Bahadur ? the grandfather of R.P. Goenka.

Eight years later, the company set up Dunlop House on Mirza Ghalib Street. Initially, the company had planned a building on C.R. Avenue, where Hindustan Building now stands. But its foreign directors preferred Mirza Ghalib Street. The Sahagunj factory was also set up at the same time.

Dunlop House went into the hands of Manu Chhabria at the end of October 1988. Ten years later, the company became sick and was referred to the BIFR. It wound up operations at Sahagunj and the Ambattur unit in Tamil Nadu.

The sale proceeds of Dunlop House will be used for clearing the dues of employees of the Sahagunj factory and the head office, according to the directive issued by the BIFR.