A landmark office block in Sheffield city centre has been sold in a multi-million pound transaction.

1 St Paul’s Place (pictured) has been purchased by investment group Canada Life for £23.96m. The previous owner was fund manager Standard Life Investments.

The 7-storey building offers in excess of 88,000 sq ft of floor space with the ground floor used as retail units. The above-ground office floors are fully let to law firm DLA Piper with Barclays and RBS subletting space on the first and second floors. Rental prices for the office space are estimated to be £15 / sq ft whilst the retail space is marketed at £18.50 / sq ft.

The Grade A rated office block was constructed in 2005 and is part of a mixed-use scheme that includes offices, residential and retail premises. The adjacent 2 St Paul’s Place is an office block that was completed in 2009 and is now occupied by the Department for Schools, Children and Families (DSCF). The DSCF agreed to a 250-year leasehold interest at a one-off cost of £25.99m and spent £4.8m on the office fit-out. New office furniture cost in excess of £654,000. The figures have been made available in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

3 St Paul’s Place will be the next office building within the scheme and will offer 83,891 sq ft of floor space when complete. This speculative build is dependent upon an element of European regional development funding and indicative demand from potential tenants. Developers behind the project are CTP St James Ltd.

James Lawlor, senior surveyor, DTZ Leeds, said: “We are delighted to have advised Canada Life on this acquisition. The quality of the location, property, tenant line-up and surrounding public realm sets this asset apart from the rest of the Sheffield office market.”