Oceanwide Center in SF up for sale once again

Oceanwide Center, the stalled, troubled project in Downtown San Francisco, is up for sale once again, three months after creditors seized the project from developer Oceanwide Holdings.

Eastdil Secured has been tapped to market the project to potential buyers, according to the San Francisco Business Times, citing marketing materials. The New York-based investment firm is marketing Oceanwide, which has been plagued by failed sales, $1.6 billion of ballooning costs and more than $150 million of mechanic’s liens, as an “ideal global headquarter opportunity,” the report said.

The marketing materials say the 2.4 million-square-foot project is still under construction. The delays provide any potential buyer with an “opportunity to adjust the programming within an accelerated re-entitlement timeline and complete the project at a favorable basis.”

Oceanwide Holdings, one of China’s largest real estate firms, lost control of the project in October after failing to pay back bonds linked to the project.

Haitong International Financial Services’ Singapore unit and an entity named Spring Progress Investment Solutions were the debt holders that took control of the project, along with shares of Oceanwide’s U.S. subsidiary, China Oceanwide Holdings International. Together, the firms hold a combined HK$2.5 billion across two series of notes.

A unit of Shenzhen-based Oceanwide sold HK$1.1 billion of notes to Spring Progress in 2018, while another unit sold HK$1.4 billion of notes to Haitong in 2019, Oceanwide said in an October filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Oceanwide Center was listed for sale in 2019. SPF Group, a Chinese investment fund, was in contract to purchase the property for about $1 billion, though it exited the deal in March 2020. Beijing-based private equity firm Hony Capital stepped in, agreeing to pay $1.2 billion to take over the unfinished project. After months of delays, that deal eventually fell through last January.

In L.A, the firm is developing a $1 billion-plus condo, hotel and retail project that has been stalled for the last several years.

Earlier this month, Oceanwide defaulted on a $175 million loan linked to its development site at 80 South Street in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. A planned skyscraper at the site has been stalled for years and Oceanwide had attempted to sell the property.