One of the most striking office buildings in the centre of Glasgow has changed hands in a £40m deal.

The iconic 110 St Vincent Street building, once the Union Bank building has been purchased by SEB Europe REI, a German real estate fund for institutional investors. The previous owners were Scarborough Group who are believed to have sold the building for around £40m.

The 9-storey building offers prime, Grade A office floor space amounting to approximately 96,000 sq ft. The building was designed in the 1920s by architect James Miller and was based upon American neoclassical commercial architecture. The building still features the original ground floor banking hall (pictured) that is now used to house several meeting areas.

In 2007, a £20m renovation added additional floors to the building that doubled the amount of lettable floor space. A new steel frame was constructed inside the building facade in order to replace the existing U-shaped floors with larger floor plates of approximately 12,000 sq ft.

Current tenants of the offices are Bank of Scotland who have 12 years remaining on 15-year lease, paying an annual rent of £2.4m, equivalent to a rental price of £25 / sq ft.

Cushman & Wakefield acquired the offices on behalf of SEB. Steven Newlands, Partner at the firm said “the dynamics of the [Glasgow] city centre property market are strongly weighted towards landlords thanks to a combination of a low supply of available Grade A accommodation and strong tenant demand”. He adds “With the £20m purchase of 1 Waterloo Street last month, there isn’t a great deal of Grade A left and, as the remaining buildings fill, rents will start to rise.”

CB Richard Ellis acted on behalf of Scarborough Group.