by An asparagus patch is how architect Charles Moore described the relentless skyline of downtown Los Angeles in the 1980s. “The tallest stem and the shortest stem are just the same, except that the taller one shot its father out of the ground.”
This sprawling city of bungalows was never known for the quality of its high-rise buildings, and little has changed since Moore’s day. An ordinance from the 1950s that required all towers to have a flat roof was abolished in 2014, spawning a handful of clumsy quiffs and a crown atop a fresh crop of swollen glass slabs. It only added further evidence to the notion that architects in this seismic city are probably better suited to stay grounded.
But, if he were still with us, Moore might be delighted to discover that there is now one very handsome cluster of asparagus stalks among the cluster of similar shoots – and that is no thanks to the architect’s intention. Three towers of luxury condos and a hotel, designed by LA firm CallisonRTKL as generic mental glass boxes, are now a work of graffiti art.
The three towers of Oceanwide Plaza were supposed to sit atop a “lifestyle podium” of shops and restaurants (AKA a mall), wrapped in a 700-foot-long LED ribbon — “an eye-catching technology standard bearer,” in the words of the project’s Chinese developer . But they ended up being transformed into something more attractive than the builder could have ever dreamed of. Forty floors of graffiti tags now swing above the street, creating a vertical canvas for street art, and providing one of the most colorful diving platforms around.
“With all due respect, shit is abandoned, doing nothing,” one of the artists, known as Hopes, told the art and design website Hyperallergic. “Let’s put some color on this thing and do what we do if they don’t finish the job.” Another artist, known as Aker, agreed: “This building has needed love for years,” they said. “If the owners aren’t doing anything about it, the streets of LA are willing to take something out of it.”
The dystopian scene has drawn comparisons to other abandoned high-rises around the world, including the Torre de David in Caracas, the unique Sathorn Tower in Bangkok, and the pyramidal “hotel of doom” in Pyongyang. But how did this happen in Los Angeles, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world?
The project began in 2015—not coincidentally, the same year LA’s 2028 Olympic bid was confirmed, setting off a tidal wave of development interest in this part of downtown, where the Crypto.com Arena will host the basketball games. The luxury residential development, which is part of CallisonRTKL’s broader sports and entertainment district master plan, was a key element in Beijing-based Oceanwide’s strategic expansion into the US. A year earlier, the company announced plans to build a 2.4m square foot mega-project in San Francisco, designed by Norman Foster, and later a 1,400ft tower in New York and a 44-acre resort in Honolulu. Both projects have since stopped.
As is often the case in Chinese investment projects, these developments were to be financed through off-plan sales to Chinese nationals, who were lured to invest by the promise of the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program: an easy path to green card. for $800,000. Such projects were popular among China’s nouveau riche, as they were seen as safe havens to park their capital, safe from the grasp of the communist government.
In the years following President Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown, starting in 2012, there has been an increasingly voracious desire among China’s elite to get their assets out of the country, for fear of being seized by the state. A bit like Hollywood’s American Storage Building, a giant storage castle built in the 1920s, the Oceanwide towers would essentially be high-rise vaults – literal stacks of safety deposit boxes for Chinese money, crafted in concrete and glass.
But a combination of the Covid pandemic and a change in Chinese laws, which would restrict overseas investment, would be a fatal blow to such schemes. While 273 EB-5 investors provided over $136m for the downtown LA project, court filings show Oceanwide struggled to secure additional funding to complete the $1bn development. The company was further concerned by several investors suing Oceanwide Plaza’s senior credit lender, LA Downtown Investment LP, for alleged mismanagement of their funds, prompting a notice of legal action the property. By April 2020, US Citizenship and Immigration Services began denying EB-5 petitions to investors because they determined the project was over.
Adding to the flurry of lawsuits was one from a security firm hired to protect the site, filed because the developer stopped paying them – which may explain why it was so easy for the taggers access his 50 store canvas. It seemed like an elaborate art world stunt, perfectly timed for the Frieze fair crowd to roll into town. Perhaps a collector could have coughed up and acquired the world’s largest work of street art, diversifying their Banksy collection and bailing out the project in the process.
Instead, the city council voted last month to allocate nearly $4m of taxpayer money to remove the graffiti and secure the site. “I’m not waiting for the developer to clean up his property,” council member Kevin de León told the Los Angeles Times at the time of the vote. “The purpose of my motion is clear: to prepare our city to take decisive action if the developer of Oceanwide Plaza ignores their responsibility and puts them on the hook for costs incurred by the city.”
They may be waiting a while. In January, Oceanwide’s parent company filed papers with the Hong Kong stock exchange announcing it was winding up the group and appointing a liquidator.
These three spray-painted carcasses may seem like an anomaly – a series of exaggerated urban art stages, plucked from a television series – but they are symptomatic of a wider, less visible phenomenon that threatens the renaissance of pre-pandemic Downtown LA. Neighboring towers may not have been tagged, but many of their floors are empty. City center office vacancy rates hit a record 30% last year, with some building owners struggling to offload their blocks. Rising interest rates and falling real estate prices mean that many owners are now facing debt loads that exceed the market value of their properties. Appetite for downtown living has also waned, with apartment vacancy rates rising from 6.4% to 11% last year, according to real estate analytics company CoStar.
But life in town is booming. Less than a mile away from the abandoned blocks of Oceanwide, the homeless community of Skid Row has grown to about 6,000 people. Struggling to find basic shelter, Oceanwide planned to offer its 500 residents an “unparalleled amenity package” of private screening rooms, gyms, co-working spaces, and even a dedicated “dog washing facility”, as well as a swimming pool cantilevered above. water-intensive lawn.
As the luxury lifestyle dream has evaporated, this monument to a city under pressure from foreign investment should be returned to those who need it most. The Olympic speculation program could be a sign of a real commitment to affordable housing, ready in time to be shown on the world stage when the world’s TV cameras turn to the sports circus.
