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City crews on Friday took an initial step toward securing an unfinished complex of downtown Los Angeles high-rise towers that have been\u00a0vandalized with graffiti<\/a>\u00a0and used for dangerous social media stunts after the developer ran out of money.<\/p>\n Workers began removing scaffolding protecting a temporary walkway that officials say said has helped trespassers enter the property.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were able to hide inside the walkway area and tunnel their way in by tearing holes in the fence,\u201d police Sgt. Gordon Helper said.<\/p>\n The next step will be to install a better fence at the project, which is drawing significant police resources and where city leaders fear someone will die, especially after social media videos showed people\u00a0BASE jumping<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 parachuting from the towers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t have anybody getting hurt here or injuring themselves or even a fatality,\u201d Helper said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want that to happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n The towers were going to house a hotel and luxury condominiums, but the project stalled in 2019 when the Beijing-based developer ran out of money, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times<\/a>\u00a0reported. Locally dubbed the \u201cgraffiti towers<\/a>,\u201d they are a project of China Oceanwide Holdings, a real-estate developer that is being wound up (i.e., liquidated) in Hong Kong, according to a January filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange<\/a>. <\/p>\n Oceanwide had first announced the ambitious project in downtown L.A. in 2015, an era when it was expanding aggressively in the U.S.<\/a>, only for the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and Xi Jinping\u2019s reaction to it, to drastically change each country\u2019s policy climate for heavily leveraged Chinese conglomerates. In San Francisco, for instance, Oceanwide was planning a billion-dollar development<\/a> that would become the city\u2019s second-tallest building, but shortly after breaking ground in 2016 that was left similarly unfinished to L.A.\u2019s graffiti towers.<\/p>\n The extent of tagging and vandalism began drawing attention in recent weeks, becoming a civic embarrassment in a high-profile area that includes Crypto.com Arena \u2014 home of major sports teams and events such as the Grammys \u2014 as well as the Los Angeles Convention Center and the L.A. Live dining and events complex.<\/p>\n City Councilmember Kevin de Le\u00f3n, who represents the area, has said a developer is needed to complete construction. He told a recent council meeting that by conservative estimates it would take $500 million to buy the property and $1.5 billion to complete it. He also issued a motion this week, the Financial Times<\/em> reported<\/a>, in which he called Oceanwide Plaza a \u201cblack eye on an otherwise vibrant part\u201d of downtown LA. He said it goes beyond graffiti and stunts . like parachuting, as bandits have taken to stripping the building of its copper wire.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to the CFO Daily newsletter to keep up with the trends, issues, and executives shaping corporate finance. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n