The office building at 1100 Wilshire Boulevard just west of downtown has always been a turkey. It opened in 1986 and never had more than a few tenants, partly because of the quirky design: 15 floors of parking in the brown part, then offices in the oddly shaped 22-floor mirrored tower. The logo on the top used to read WCT, which quipsters joked stood for Without Current Tenants. This week's Downtown News reports on the white elephant being sold for $40 million with plans to convert it into 256 luxury condos through a partnership of Hampton Development, TMG Partners and Forest City Residential. Wilshire's hot: another underused office tower, the former Getty Oil headquarters across from the Wiltern Theatre at Wilshire & Western, is also being converted to residences.

Previously on L.A. Observed: L.A.'s ghost buildings, Koreatown's 'Howard Hughes'