Transamerica partners near sale of complex's final piece.

USAA Real Estate Co., a subsidiary of San Antonio-based insurer USAA, is nearing a deal to buy the Transamerica tower in downtown Los Angeles for $120 million, according to sources briefed on the transaction.

If the deal for the 32-story building at 1150 S. Olive St. closes it will mark a hefty return for the partnership of New Pacific Realty Corp. and Earvin "Magic" Johnson's Canyon-Johnson Realty Advisors, which spent about $100 million for the 565,000-square-foot tower, a smaller adjacent tower and several tracts of undeveloped land in mid-2003.

The partnership has already recouped about $45 million through the sale of the 225,000-square-foot building at 1149 S. Broadway to the city of Los Angeles and the raw land to housing developers.

The deal with USAA is still being negotiated, and sources said it was close, but not signed. In an e-mail, Bobby Turner, managing partner of Beverly Hills-based Canyon Capital Realty Advisors, a partner in the Canyon-Johnson group, wrote, "We do not have a binding agreement with anyone as of this time."

Soon after buying the property, the partners held a splashy press conference to announce their intention to convert the centerpiece tower into condominiums. Later, they backed away from those plans and signed SBC Communications Corp. to a 10-year, 225,000-square-foot lease worth about $50 million.

USAA Real Estate buys and manages office, residential, industrial and hospitality properties for individual and institutional investors. The company manages 30 million square feet of office buildings across the country. Calls to a company spokesman weren't returned.

Staff reporter And); Fixmer can be reached at [phone], ext. 263, or at [e-mail].