'Green Monster' gets its revenge: full tenant roster. (The Return of The Bad & The Beautiful).

IF there's any concrete evidence that location cures all evils in real estate, it sits at 11175 Santa Monica Blvd.

Featured in July 1999 by the Business Journal as one of five "Local Examples of How Not to Develop a Property' the 78,000-square-foot West L.A. building had all the makings of an office project horror story.

Delivered just before the market crash of 1987 with small floorplates, multiple owners and a bankruptcy filing to its credit, the building became known in the local real estate industry as "the Green Monster."

But it is also sat right next to the San Diego (405) Freeway -- and in the end, that proved its saving, grace.

It remained mostly empty until last year, when ING Direct, the Canadian on-line banking subsidiary of Dutch financial services conglomerate ING Groep N.V. took 66,000 square feet in a deal that included signage rights.

The deal reduced vacancies at the nine-story building, just west of the 405, to a scant 3,000 square feet, about 4 percent.

With the credit-worthy tenant in tow, landlord Equity Office Properties Trust, which inherited the building in its 2001 purchase of Spieker Properties Inc., was able to unload the building to an affiliate of Canadian developer Castlepoint Development Corp. for $13.7 million.

"They took the building for the sign," said Bruce Schuman, senior vice president at Julien J. Studley Inc., who had done location work for ING but was not involved with the deal.

Another of the lackluster projects highlighted in the late '90s, 5757 Century Blvd., also saw its fortunes revive a bit.

Built in 1981 and 40 percent vacant in mid-1999, the 331,000-square-foot building was purchased by Decron Properties Corp. in 2000. After spending $5 million on renovations, Decron saw its move pay off.

UCLA's medical billing group signed a 10-year deal for 81,000 square feet worth more than $15 million in January 2002. The building. is still 30 percent vacant, but that's little worse than the LAX/Century Boulevard corridor vacancy rate in the first quarter, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.

For the other three properties on 1999's list of dogs, the past four years haven't been as kind. Location and design issues that plagued the sites since their inception remain a factor -- the most notable example being the office tower at 1100 Wilshire Blvd. Right at the Harbor (110) Freeway, it remains without a tenant (and wound up on the Business Journal's newest list of "bad" properties).

The Hollywood Galaxy, the retail and entertainment center just west of Hollywood & Highland, signed. New York nightclub The Knitting Factory to a 14,000-square-foot lease in 1999. But the $48 million center, built in 1991, remains about a third vacant. Plans by landlord CIM Group Inc. to redevelop the 120,000-square-foot center, which date back to 1999, have yet to materialize.

Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles, which owns and operates Los Angeles Mall on Main Street near the Civic Center, has conceded to the challenges of the partially submerged complex by putting office and governmental services into what was originally intended for retail.

While food-related operators have gone into the 50,000-square-foot mall and retail space is available for as little as $1.25 a month , government offices are replacing the two museums there, said Reggie Jones-Sawyer, director of asset management for the city's general services department.

"The need for office space in the Civic Center area became the driving force in most of our decisions affecting the mall," said Jones-Sawyer.