The developers behind Glasgow's soon-to-be tallest office building have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to redesign it because of COVID-19.

They had already started constructing the building at 177 Bothwell Street before the pandemic reached the UK. But because of safety concerns, HFD Property Group decided to pay out of pocket to make the building "touch-free."

"You can now come from outside the building through the front doors, through our security barriers, into the lifts and on to your occupier's floors without physically touching any part of the building," Stephen Lewis, managing director at HFD Property Group, told CGTN Europe.

"Whether it's through the speed gates or destination control, you get to your place of work without touching anything," he added.

"But we've extended that further, so in the toilet space you can flush, wash your hands, dry them, soap dispensing all that again is fully touchless."

HFD Property Group had already invested $250 million in the project before the redesign. 

Lewis claimed the conversion was worth it because it only cost a small fraction of the overall money spent on the building, which will be finished in 2021.

He added that HFD Property Group was already thinking about some of these conversions before the onset of COVID-19. 

Lewis said that work flexibility, wellness, smart tech and sustainability were all becoming more popular before the pandemic.

"COVID-19 has effectively just super accelerated all these trends," he said.

The office leasing market across Europe has been hit hard because of the pandemic, according to global real estate specialists Savills.

In Germany, for example, leasing activity has fallen by 25 percent since the pandemic began.

Renters are worried about economic uncertainty and concerns about their employees' health. 

"I have sympathy for any corporate head of real estate who is wrestling with how to get their existing staff into their existing offices and back to work and how they do that safely with social distancing," Lewis said. "Do they need less space, or do they need more space?"

He added: "So, if developers and landowners weren't considering smart tech, they will absolutely have to do that now. A, because it's the right thing to do. But B, because it's the only way that they can adequately deal with the issues that things like COVID-19 throws up."

Currently, 50 percent of the building is pre-let by the UK-based bank Virgin Money, and another 25 percent of it will be used for HFD's managed offices business. The remaining office space is still available. 

LISTEN to our podcast Notes on a Pandemic to learn more about how COVID-19 is changing offices.