New Scotland Yard building on the market for £250m

New Scotland Yard, the 1960s office block that has been home to the Metropolitan police for nearly half a century, has gone on the market for £250m.

In the biggest shakeup of the Met police estate in decades, the building in the heart of Victoria, central London, will be marketed as 10 Broadway.

Having housed the force's headquarters since 1967, it could be turned into a 600,000 sq ft block of flats with views of St James's Park and the Houses of Parliament.

There are hopes that the sale, handled by Jones Lang LaSalle, will raise more than £300m, but it will not include the famous revolving sign, which instead will mark the force's new headquarters on Victoria Embankment.

The building is being sold by the mayor's office for policing and crime (Mopac) as part of a major overhaul of the Met estate, which has raised £125m through the sale of 32 underused and dilapidated buildings.

The operational headquarters of the Met will move to the Curtis Green building on Victoria Embankment, which is owned by Mopac and has stood empty since late 2011. The move is estimated to save the force more than £6m a year in running costs.

The Met's new base will cater for up to 1,000 police officers and staff in open-plan offices, compared with 2,500 at New Scotland Yard.

The sale proceeds are to be ploughed into mobile technologies such as body-worn cameras, secure tablets and smartphones for frontline officers, enabling them to file crime reports and witness statements while on patrol.