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

Because the project has been exposed to the elements, including heavy storms, for years, Morkun said he was surprised at what he observed during a tour he took while considering whether to make an offer on the property.

“The concrete structure has held up fairly well,” he said, adding that he didn’t see much standing water or mold on the drywall and the aluminum and glass exteriors had stood up well to the weather.

That said, an unfinished construction project is full of unknowns, which can lead to problems, he said. “It would be daunting, as if you decided to pick up a pile of cards in a card game. You could be saying, ‘Holy smokes, what have I gotten myself into?’”

A major obstacle a new owner would face in trying to make Oceanwide Plaza financially viable is the design of the residential portions, which were intended to be filled with large, high-end condominiums. Oceanwide was expected to sell the condos primarily to Chinese residents looking for a place to invest overseas, but that pool of buyers shrank in 2017 while construction was underway, when the Chinese government restricted the flow of money out of the country. Large condos have proved a tough sell in Los Angeles, where wealthy buyers tend to prefer stand-alone homes.

Converting the residential space from big units to smaller, more affordable ones would be extremely difficult because of the way the floors are built, said architect Scott Johnson, who specializes in designing high-rise buildings, including the Figueroa Eight apartment tower downtown and office towers in Century City.

The builders used a common construction method for the floors called post-tension that involves pouring cement around taut steel cables that must stay intact even after the cement dries.

“We can’t take a floor that maybe has six huge units and then get 12 small units because every new toilet, every sink, every drain line, every vent would have to be cut into the slab, which has all these steel cables in it supporting it,” Johnson said. “The multiplication of units can’t happen here.”

If the number of units could somehow be multiplied, a new developer would also have to determine whether the buildings have enough elevators, parking spaces and other facilities to support increased occupancy, he said.

Challenges for using the property as designed go well beyond construction issues, real estate observers say, largely because there is so much space that would need to be leased or sold. Oceanwide came to L.A. with a plan on a scale more commonly found in China, where developments often dwarf projects in the West.

“The sheer scope of the project ... was unprecedented,” said Witte of Related California.

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