Built in 1982, the striking structure at 645 7th Ave. S.W. was the corporate headquarters of pipeline company Nova Corp. until its $14-billion merger with TransCanada in July 1998.

TransCanada will soon relocate its staff to a new office tower at 1st Street and 4th Avenue S.W.

With the Nova building no longer needed, it was put up for grabs in December, along with an estimated $3 billion in non-core company assets. TransCanada sold its crude oil marketer, Northridge Petroleum Marketing Ltd., on Tuesday for $40 million to Canadian Occidental Petroleum Ltd. The sale of the Nova tower is expected to close by the end of the month. "They've just finalized negotiations," said Trans-Canada spokeswoman Lisa Neiles. "We are going to amalgamate all of our employees in one spot." The company wouldn't divulge the value of the property on its financial books, although Neiles said the proceeds are in line with TransCanada's expectations.

Real estate experts said the price was close to market value for a Class A office building nestled just outside the main downtown corridor. "If the objective is to get rid of it now, they may have squeezed a few more million out," said Bryan Walsh, vice-president of commercial real estate specialist CB Richard Ellis Alberta. "They got pretty close to top dollar."

TransCanada said the property was sold to a numbered company, but several sources said the investment group is led by prominent businessman Harold Milavsky. Milavsky, former chairman of Trizec Corp., could not be reached for comment.

It is known that CanOxy is leasing floors 17-36 in the former Nova building, with employees beginning to move in later this summer. CanOxy official Kevin Finn said the oil company has the right to put its new logo and name on the top of the tower as part of the lease agreement. The office tower is a past-winner of a Governor-General's award for architecture and considered one of Calgary's top office buildings. "It is a nice building with some great views higher up," added Walsh. "It's not a conventional building because Nova designed it and built it themselves, so it has some unique features."

For example, the tower has no conventional ceiling lighting and uses indirect lighting that is built into the furniture, he noted. TransCanada said earlier this year it would shift most of its Calgary employees, who are scattered around the city in several locations, into its new 35-storey office tower.

Construction of the building, owned by H & R Development Corp., is almost complete and workers are expected to begin moving in later this year.