The incomplete trio of towers across from Crypto.com Arena may soon have a new owner.
The would-be buyer of Oceanwide Plaza, the residential, hotel and retail project in Downtown LA, is a partnership led by Kali P. Chaudhuri, a Riverside-based developer and head of KPC Development Co.
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Oceanwide is in bankruptcy proceedings. Lendlease, the original general contractor on the project, and Chaudhuri filed an initial purchase agreement in bankruptcy court Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
That agreement sets a baseline price for the project of $470M, and if a higher qualified offer isn't received by April 9, the court could approve the sale to the Chaudhuri partnership, KPC Square LLC, according to the LA Times.
The $470M offer comprises $70M in cash and a $400M credit bid, in which a secured creditor uses the existing debt it is owed to purchase a debtor's assets, the court filing shows.
KPC has another high-profile Los Angeles-area project: the $300M Kali Hotel next to SoFi Stadium in Hollywood Park. It has also developed large projects including a 1,000-bed hospital in Kolkata, India.
Court filings show the bidder pool from which Chaudhuri's group was plucked included five prospective buyers. Oceanwide Plaza LLC, the developer on the project, determined "the value of the Estate would be best maximized through a private sale" to KPC Square.
A 2024 appraisal estimated it would cost $865M to complete the project, which it valued at $434M.
The parent company of Oceanwide Plaza LLC, the project's developer, is China Oceanwide Holdings. Court records show the project's trouble dates back to 2018 when the Chinese government began to clamp down on money flowing out of China and into other countries, resulting in challenges to getting additional capital transfers from China for the project.
The severity of the project's cash flow issues came to the fore when work abruptly stalled on the project in 2019 amid reports of tens of millions in pending mechanic's liens on the project.
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