A BUYER has been found for Poole's iconic Barclays House, the Daily Echo understands, after boarding was put up around the building.
The buyer, who has purchased the landmark building for an undisclosed sum, remains anonymous but we can confirm it is not Fortitudo chief executive Richard Carr or BCP Council.
The council and Mr Carr had both expressed a potential interest in buying Barclays House and its estate last year.
It remains unclear what the future holds for the building - whether it will be demolished or redeveloped.
BCP Council placed an ‘indicative’ and unconfirmed bid of £17million for Barclays’ Poole estate, which would include a 1,100-space car park.
After a period of due diligence costing the council £195,000, council leader Drew Mellor said: “We have found that both the building and car park require a level of refurbishment and/or rebuilding which would not fit in with our intended plans – especially with reference to the car park.
Read more: BCP Council will NOT continue to buy Barclays House
“We will therefore not be extending the exclusivity period or submitting a formal bid for the site, which will allow other interested parties to continue dialogue with the owners about their bids and plans.”
Meanwhile property developer Mr Carr confirmed to the Echo he has not purchased the estate, after he placed a bid of £6.5m.
He said: “After the council bowed out of it, Barclays sold it to a third party. Quite clearly after the council had bid the amount they did, my bid was obviously not correct for them.”
In January last year, it was revealed that Barclays would be moving its near-700 staff out of the iconic Poole building and into new offices in Bournemouth's Lansdowne area.
Barclays House has been unoccupied since December, when staff moved out after 46 years of working from the Poole site.
Read more: BCP Council's bid for Barclays House was an "indicative figure"
The huge Barclays House office block and multi-storey car park opened in 1976, after a public inquiry and several years of construction.
It employed around 2,500 people at its peak, most of them recruited locally to join the several hundred who moved from London.
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