No deal has yet been agreed but it is believed that the bank and Minerva, the firm behind the building, have been in discussions over a possible occupation.
Just over 400,000 square feet of office space is available at the City of London site but it has so far been left unused since its construction was completed more than 12 months ago.
Read our Guide to Opening an Office in the City of London here
Leading figures at Minerva have suggested that the lack of a major tenant at The Walbrook Building is down to a relative lack of activity in the wider office space market in the capital.
Minerva’s development director Tim Garnham is quoted in the Guardian as saying: “The market was quite quiet in the second half of last year. It has begun to improve in the last few weeks but the City is not racing away.”
The claim from the company is that there have only been a few deals, notably those involving space for UBS and Bloomberg, on the scale that would be required to fill its central London offices and that medium-scale agreements are also proving tough to finalise.
A number of rental options are reportedly being investigated by Minerva in case the deal with Santander falls through.
Santander is among the largest financial services businesses currently operating in the UK and it has more than a thousand branches on high streets around the country.
It is generally expected that the costs associated with renting office space in the City of London will rise over the course of this year as a result of low supply levels and increasing demand.
Editor’s notes: The deal between Santander and Minerva did not materialise. However, tenants that did rent office space at The Walbrook included Gallagher Insurance, Vanguard and Worldpay. Retail and leisure space was rented by Pret a Mangter and Virgin Active Gym.
As of May 2023, Santander listed its London headquarters offices as 2 Triton Square, Regents Place, London, NW1 3AN on its website.
The entirety of the 200,000-square-foot office building was let by British Land to Abbey National in 2002 on a 20-year lease that was due to expire April 2022.
Santander (which had acquired Abbey in 2004) bought the building from British Land in 2009 for £115 million.