Chinese Investor Buys Office Building in DTLA for $60M

An unidentified Chinese investor has picked up a 25-story office building in Downtown Los Angeles for $60 million — more than $118 million less than its last traded price.

The mystery buyer bought 801 Tower, a 465,200-square-foot building at 801 South Figueroa Street, in South Park, the Commercial Observer reported, citing unidentified sources.

The seller was Barings, based in North Carolina. At the time of sale, the building was 79 percent leased. The deal works out to $129 per square foot.

Barings purchased the building in 2014 for $178.2 million, or $383 per square foot. Late that year, New York Life Insurance provided a $100 million loan tied to the building.

The lender allowed the sale from Barings to the Chinese buyer to provide a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure, avoiding L.A.’s controversial Measure ULA transfer tax, which tacks on another 5.5 percent on sales over $10 million, a source told the Observer.

Eastdil Secured handled the sale, while Asia Pacific Capital represented the buyer.

“It’s an excellent time for individual investors to consider entering the market,” Roger Li, managing director at APC, said in a statement.

801 Tower, built in 1992 at the Southwest corner of Figueroa and 8th Street, has jade green windows divided by bands of polished pink-and-green granite.

The office vacancy in Downtown L.A. at the end of the first quarter was 28.8 percent, according to CBRE, following a broad shift to remote work. Add higher borrowing costs for office landlords and loan defaults — and the office market appears to have bottomed out.

This month, the County of Los Angeles bought the 52-story Gas Company Tower at 555 West Fifth Street ahead of a foreclosure auction for $215 million, or $154 per square foot. That’s down from the assessed value for the Class A office building prior to the pandemic of $630 million, or $527 per square foot.

Late last month, another unidentified Chinese investor bought the 1 million-square foot, 52-story office building at 777 South Figueroa Street for $120 million, or $120 per square foot.

— Dana Bartholomew