Forget the graffiti. LA's most notorious skyscrapers have a much bigger problem

“It’s about two-thirds of the way done, with about $1.2 billion already invested in it,” he said, and is structurally sound, according to an engineer. “Why would you tear down a perfectly good project? It’s unimaginable.”

For now, Oceanwide Plaza stands out on the L.A. skyline, a graffiti-covered oddity on Figueroa Street — the wide thoroughfare that connects downtown’s financial district with L.A. Live, Crypto.com Arena and the Los Angeles Convention Center. It fills a large city block across the street from the arena — an A+ location in real estate terms for being in the midst of year-round activity.

The site was a sprawling asphalt lot used for event parking when Beijing-based Oceanwide Holdings bought it in 2014 with a vision to build a fancy, mixed-use development that was far bigger in scale than what is typically built in the U.S.

Oceanwide set to work on the complex, which was intended to house luxury condominiums, a five-star hotel and an indoor mall that would include deluxe shops and restaurants. A massive electronic sign on its facade was to bring a flavor of Times Square to Figueroa Street.

When Oceanwide stopped paying building contractors in 2019 and work ceased, the construction site wasn’t all that much of an eyesore, said Javier Cano, the area manager for Marriott hotels in Los Angeles, who oversees the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels at L.A. Live.

That changed early this year when graffiti artists began breaking into the property and turned its towers into a street art canvas, garnering worldwide headlines. The colorful images spray-painted on floor-to-ceiling windows stretch the height of the towers and are an inescapable sight from great distances.

“You get responses across the board, Cano said. “Some people believe it to be art, others believe it’s on the other end of the spectrum.”

The area remains busy with concerts and games, he said, but “we’re hoping something can get done one way or another” to bring the Oceanwide Plaza block back to life.

Stuart Morkun, vice president of development at Mitsui Fudosan America, was one of several developers who tried to figure out how to acquire and complete Oceanwide Plaza profitably but concluded it wasn’t feasible. As a builder of big projects including the recently completed Figueroa Eight luxury apartment skyscraper a few blocks away, he said he finds the project mesmerizing.

“It’s literally like walking into ‘Blade Runner,’” he said, referring to the 1982 film set in a dystopian future Los Angeles. “This postapocalyptic environment that could be from now or who-knows-when. It’s horrifying and thrilling to see at the same time.”

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