A 16-story office building in Glendale sold last month for more than $83 million, a price not seen in the city since before the recession.

The 320,000-square-foot Class A office building at 505 N. Brand Blvd. sold late last month to Principal Real Estate Investors of Des Moines, Iowa, for $83.2 million, or about $260 a square foot. The last time an office building of any significant size sold for a higher per-foot price in the city was July 2007, according to CoStar data, when Legacy Glendale City Center, a 19-story building just down the street at 101 N. Brand, sold for nearly $149 million, or about $427 a square foot.

Despite pricing at the high end of the market, LaSalle Investment Management, a Jones Lang LaSalle affiliate, still sold the property at a loss. The Chicago investment group purchased the building in 2005 for nearly $109 million, 23 percent more than it was able to recoup in the year-end deal.