Oceanwide Plaza Sale Set to Advance After L.A. Drops Objections

Los Angeles’ Oceanwide Plaza, a massive downtown development stuck in limbo so long it became tagged and transformed into the infamous Graffiti Towers, has been cleared for sale.

The long process of selecting a new developer after the original Chinese developer went bankrupt may finally be coming to a close. 

KPC Group, a Southern California real estate firm headed by Dr. Kali Chaudhuri, and Lendlease Americas will contribute $517 million in cash and credit to acquire the unfinished project, and agreed to spend roughly $800 million to finish the trio of towers, located downtown near Crypto.com Arena. 

“I will be delighted to enter an order confirming the plan,” said Deborah Saltzman, a federal bankruptcy judge, during an hours-long hearing in a Downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Monday. After a break for negotiations, the parties returned to the courtroom for a brief afternoon session confirming the details of the arrangement. 

KPC said it will begin graffiti removal on Wednesday.

The plan approval comes despite the city attorney’s objections to the KPC/Lendlease bid. In a May filing, the city, in its role as a creditor and governmental entity overseeing regulations and entitlements for the project, noted after multiple meetings, site visits and analysis that the bidder didn’t offer a complete plan that showed they had the funding and resources to fully finish. The City Attorney’s Office dropped its objections to the modified bankruptcy plan Monday after securing stronger commitments from the proposed buyer. The final version of the court’s orders will be filed Tuesday. 

KPC has a six-month window to complete the sale. Otherwise a backup buyer can be selected. In recent months, a competing bid by Sean Burton‘s CityView was seen as a potential backup.

KPC is also required, within 90 days, to remove the graffiti that has adorned the tower since 2024, when taggers began climbing and bombing the towers. Long considered an eyesore, a potential embarrassment during the upcoming 2028 Olympics, and a symbol of the city’s struggles with downtown development and blight, Monday’s news has been celebrated by Mayor Karen Bass, who in a statement considered the required remediation effort a major milestone. 

“Completing this project is about far more than finishing a building — it’s about restoring confidence, reconnecting a vital commercial corridor, and unlocking the economic potential of one of the city’s most strategic destinations ahead of a transformative decade for Los Angeles,” Bass said in a statement. “I look forward to an expedited closing and the proposed buyer delivering on their commitments.”
 The mayor’s statement said Bass expects “meaningful construction progress” before the Games begin in the summer of 2028. 

If the Oceanwide Plaza project is successful — Chaudhuri previously suggested he’d spend  at least three years and $850 million on finishing the development — Chaudhuri and KPC will significantly expand their growing real estate portfolio. An orthopedic surgeon born in Bangladesh, Chaudhuri has spent decades amassing a significant health care and real estate empire, one not without criticism and a handful of lawsuits. 

Currently, KPC is overseeing a trio of other high-profile projects across Southern California, including the 300-room $300 million Kali Hotel, situated next to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood’s Hollywood Park, and a 6,000-acre megadevelopment in Coachella, taking over a long-in-the-works project called La Entrada.