Oceanwide Center Sold at Foreclosure Auction

The beleaguered site of San Francisco’s Oceanwide Center development has a new owner following a public auction to acquire the paused development plot.

On Thursday, Chinese financial services firm Haitong placed the winning bid for the location at First and Mission Streets in the Financial District, committing $100 million to foreclose on the nearly 1.3-acre site, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Haitong originated the debt for Oceanwide Center’s developer, Oceanwide Holdings, in 2020, giving the Shanghai-based lender the ability to place a credit bid on the property at auction, meaning the company doesn’t actually have to pay the $100 million to take control of the site.

With Haitong having seized the Oceanwide parcel, the firm is now in position to sell it to the San Francisco Recovery Fund, which put down a nonrefundable deposit last month to buy the hole in the ground for an estimated $100 million. Haitong placed the only bid for the Oceanwide Center location at the auction on Thursday, though other firms are stakeholders in the property. Those include the project’s general contractor — a joint venture between firms Swinerton and Webcor — as well as their subcontractors, which have liens on the property and allege they weren’t paid for work done on Oceanwide Center before construction of the two-tower mixed-use development was halted in 2020 after breaking ground in 2016.

It’s likely that Haitong reached some sort of deal with the lien claimants, who previously argued in court that their claim to the Oceanwide site supersedes Haitong’s, a source told the Business Times. If Haitong moves forward with the foreclosure without the claimants’ cooperation, the lien claimants could put a stop to the process entirely, the source said.

Whether the San Francisco Recovery Fund goes with the approved two-tower project or submits new plans for the site remains to be seen. The Recovery Fund is planning to cement its acquisition of the Oceanwide Center property from Haitong early this year, another source told the Business Times.

— Chris Malone Méndez