The Smith Tower may soon be a place to call home.

The owner of the Seattle's first skyscraper filed an application Wednesday to convert it from offices to condominiums. In a news release Thursday, Walton Street Capital said it "is beginning to explore the opportunity" to change the use.

Walton Street Capital bought the 42-story white terra-cotta landmark from the Samis Foundation for $42.8 million last April and paid Samis another $1 million for the adjacent two-story Florence Building. Samis bought the tower a decade earlier for $7.6 million and undertook a $28-million renovation to update it and restore its elegance.

Just after the sale, Walton officials said they planned no major changes, other than to seek office tenants and fill an empty ground-floor retail space.

"We are big believers in the Seattle office market," said Perry Pinto, a Walton Street principal, said at the time. "While this asset is obviously a historical treasure, we still think it's a place where tenants love to do business."

The Smith Tower rebounded after the dot-com crash, getting up to about 90-percent occupancy last year from 74 percent five years earlier. But tenant Providence Health & Services recently bought and office park in Renton and the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reported earlier this month that tenant Disney Internet Services is pulling out of the building.

"With the recent announcement of two major tenants leaving the building, we are at a crossroads and believe it's prudent for us to explore a residential use for Smith Tower," Michael Allmon, Walton Street Capital's operating partner on certain assets in the Seattle market, said in the company's statement. "As caretakers for this historic landmark, we want to explore the option with those close to the asset and within the landmark community. It's important that all possible current and future uses be explored in the preservation of this iconic tower."

Market analysts have said the building's smaller floors aren't always efficient and its location close to services for the homeless can also pose challenges for companies.

Lyman C. Smith erected the building in 1914, partly to gin up publicity to sell Smith-Corona typewriters. It remained the tallest building west of the Rockies for nearly 50 years.

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