In recent weeks, global news outlets have reported on the financial troubles of the Chinese real estate colossus Evergrande. The massive company at risk of defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of debt is the most extreme example of the troubles weighing on China’s major developers, but it is hardly alone.Many smaller firms have similarly borrowed huge sums of cash to accelerate housing growth on the Chinese mainland and abroad. In fact, Angelenos can find evidence in our own downtown skyline, where the skeleton of the three-tower Oceanwide Plaza looms like a clean-picked whale fall on the ocean floor.Oceanwide Plaza was first planned to open in September of 2018. If ever completed to its original design, the project would add a luxury hotel, 500 condos, a shopping mall, and a Disneyland-sized parking garage to the Figueroa corridor. After […]
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