The City of Edinburgh Council has put the prestigious Atria office development in the heart of the Scottish capital’s Exchange financial district on the market for a reported £100 million asking price.

The award-winning Atria development was completed two years ago next door to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre on Morrison Street.

Atria was the largest speculative office development over 100,000 square feet outside of central London at that time.

It was developed and funded by the council with part-funding from Scottish Enterprise. Comprising Atria One and Atria Two, it provides nearly 200,000 square feet of Grade A office and retail accommodation for blue chip corporate tenants.

JLL and Montagu Evans will be the selling agents.

“Atria Edinburgh is an extremely successful development for the city,” said councillor Frank Ross, economy convener of the council.

“It was originally built to cross-subsidise the cost of an expansion to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre to ensure it continues to compete on an international stage.

“The innovative funding package was intentionally designed to facilitate the lettings and eventual sale of Atria’s office and retail space on completion of the development. Based on the economic conditions being right to achieve the best possible return for our investment, the council is putting Atria up for sale.

“Atria provides much needed Grade A office space for Edinburgh and gives the city a competitive advantage in attracting new, and retaining existing businesses. This is reflected in the extremely impressive tenant list.”

Atria’s corporate tenants include PwC, Brewin Dolphin, Aon, IBM, the UK Green Investment Bank, the Law Society of Scotland, Alliance Trust and Lothian Pension Fund. Retail occupiers include the Co-operative Food and Café Klaris.

“Atria is a fantastic development and has excellent sustainability and design credentials,” said Ross Burnett, partner at Montagu Evans. “We believe this is the highest profile investment to come to the market in a long time.”

Colin Finlayson, director at JLL, said: “The sale of Atria represents a rare opportunity to purchase a best-in-class development and it comes at a time when investor demand is strong from both the UK and overseas.  We are confident we will be able to generate significant interest.”