The Bank of America Financial Center – the tallest building in downtown Spokane – has been sold to Canada-based Redstone Group, which marks the commercial real estate company’s first investment in the Spokane market.

Redstone Group purchased the building for $47.7 million from Unico Properties LLC, a subsidiary of Unico Investment Group LLC in Seattle, according to records filed with Spokane County.

The sale includes the 20-story Bank of America Financial Center at 601 W. Riverside Ave., which has more than 330,000 square feet of office space, and an eight-story parking structure connected to the building via a skywalk.

The acquisition gives Vancouver, B.C.-based Redstone Group a significant footprint in Spokane, which will be a base for future investments in the Spokane Valley and surrounding areas, according to a news release.

“We like the area. We think Spokane has great potential. It’s growing,” said Ayaz Velji, vice president of Redstone Group of Companies. “The (building) for us was really appealing. It’s a great class A building and a good gateway for us into Spokane.”

The Bank of America Financial Center was constructed in 1981 and at 288 feet is the tallest building in Eastern Washington.

The building site is steeped in banking history. Traders National Bank built a five-story building after the Great Fire of 1889. The bank merged with Spokane and Eastern Trust Co. in 1914. Joel E. Ferris, a prominent figure in Spokane history, became the bank’s president in 1931. That same year, the bank was razed for a seven-story Art Deco building, which The Spokesman Review called “one of the most distinctive buildings in the Northwest.”

During the Great Depression, the bank merged with Seattle First National. The modern 20-story Seafirst Financial Center was constructed in 1981, and, following a merger in 1998, the building’s name was changed to Bank of America Financial Center two years later.

Redstone Group, one of British Columbia’s largest private commercial real estate companies, has a varied portfolio of commercial office buildings in California, Arizona, Washington, Colorado and Canada.

Unico purchased the Bank of America Financial Center from First States Investors 5000A LLC for $36 million in 2007. Unico Properties LLC, founded in 1953, operates 17 million square feet of commercial properties across the United States.

Seattle-based real estate investment company Kidder Matthews represented Unico for the sale. Listing brokers for the sale were Jason Rosauer, senior vice president and partner; Andy Miller, senior vice president and partner, and Rob Anderson, first vice president and partner.

The building’s tenants, which include Merrill Lynch, Moss Adams, Bank of America and Clearwater Paper, will remain in the building.