“I doubt if the city will want to try to take over the property itself,” Spivack said. The city would become liable for accidents and other problems on the worksite. City officials were unlikely to want to take over the site, said Donald Spivack, a former member of LA’s Community Redevelopment Agency who now sits on the faculty at the University of Southern California. If LA has to assume responsibility for safeguarding the site, as many expect, the question becomes what happens next. Attempts to reach China Oceanwide Holdings representatives by telephone and email this week were unsuccessful. On January 3, its parent company filed papers with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange announcing that it was winding up the group and appointing a liquidator. Two years later work stopped at Oceanwide Plaza as contractors complained of unpaid bills. China’s red-hot property sector began to cool off, and Oceanwide Holdings was removed from Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Midcap index in 2017. The development’s problems began as US-China tensions mounted during the Trump administration. If that is the case, city officials say they would seek to reclaim the estimated $3.8mn needed to secure the site from the company. His motion, backed by the rest of the council, calls for Oceanwide to build sturdy fences around the site, hire extra security, remove the graffiti and clear public space that has been obstructed by the project.īy the end of the week, few were holding out hope that Oceanwide would meet the deadline - or even respond at all. Besides the graffiti and parachuting, bandits had been stripping the building of copper wire, he said. Kevin De León, a member of LA’s city council, issued a motion this week in which he called Oceanwide Plaza a “black eye on an otherwise vibrant part” of downtown LA. If the company fails to do so, then the job - and most likely the expense - will fall to the city of Los Angeles. The city has given Oceanwide until this weekend to secure the area around the site. “The owner should reimburse the city for every dime.” “I guarantee you tragedy will take place there if that place is not boarded up quickly,” Bass told a local television station this week. For LA mayor Karen Bass, that was the final straw. In the weeks since, paragliders have posted videos of themselves diving off the structure’s bare girders 20-plus storeys in the air. The publicity attracted even more graffiti artists and other daredevils. Oceanwide’s three unfinished towers are covered with the work of seemingly gravity-defying graffiti writers, whose spray-painted tags gained worldwide attention in January when the Grammy Awards were held across the street at the Arena. Instead of a prime downtown destination, Oceanwide has become another vexing problem for LA officials who are already grappling with a homelessness crisis and a serious lack of affordable housing. Today, however, Oceanwide Plaza remains unfinished and its parent company is out of money. A 700-foot LED screen would wrap around the building, giving a pulse to the burgeoning entertainment destination. The development’s Chinese backers laid out a $1bn vision of 500 luxury condos, a five-star Plaza Hotel and retail space - all sitting in a prime location just across from the arena where the LA Lakers play basketball. When plans for the Oceanwide Plaza development were unveiled in 2015, it was billed as a gleaming symbol of downtown Los Angeles’ renaissance. Simply sign up to the Property sector myFT Digest - delivered directly to your inbox.
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