11175 Santa Monica Building

West Los Angeles

Motorists driving along Santa Monica Boulevard, just east of the San Diego (405) Freeway, pass by one of the longest-standing eyesores on the Westside. The structure sits unfinished and unoccupied, just as it has for the past 13 years, seemingly oblivious to the prosperity that has sprouted up around it.

The nine-story building never has been fully completed or brought up to current earthquake-safety standards, and despite the occasional inquiry from a prospective tenant, remains an empty shell.

“It was built as cheaply as you can build a building. The floors vibrate. It’s like you’re sitting in the middle of the freeway,” said one broker who has been inside it.

Built in 1986 by developer Jim Schumacher during the Westside building boom, “the green monster” (as the all-green-glass building has been come to be known) failed to attract tenants and was taken over by its lender. Eventually the bank sold it in 1994 for between $2 million and $3 million to real estate veteran Don Greenwood, who has held onto the property since then.

Greenwood apparently has put out feelers to sell it, and is offering monthly lease rates of $2.50 a square foot. (Rates across the street at the Westwood Gateway project, widely considered one of the highest-quality complexes in town, are listed at $2.65 to $4.) Greenwood did not return phone calls last week.

Not everyone is overtly critical of the building, but its site tends to be more highly regarded than the structure itself.

“It is a highly visible building adjacent to major traffic arteries,” said Tim Macker, president of Westmac Commercial Brokerage Co. “It may very well be that (Greenwood) has some patient money, and there is every indication that the market will go up. I don’t know that there is anything wrong with it.”

Still, Greenwood has been actively marketing the building for 44 months now, without a bite, and skeptics question whether the future will be any different.

John Brinsley