South Park Megaproject Fig Central Is Back From The Dead

[2007 renderings of the Fig Central project]

From Curbed Los Angeles.

Yesterday brought signs that the decades-stalled Metropolis project might be sputtering back to life; now South Park's other long-in-the-works megadevelopment, Fig Central, has a revived heartbeat too. Beijing-based developer Oceanwide Real Estate Group has agreed to buy the multi-million-dollar mixed-use project "for no more than $200 million," reports the Wall Street Journal; the project has been dying for that kind of cash influx since progress was halted bycrappy market conditions back in 2008. "[T]he authorities' approval to build the project has been secured" already, Oceanwide said in a statement, suggesting that groundbreaking won't be far off, though there's no official date for completion.

First approved back in 2007, Fig Central, aka LA Central, would sit across the street from the Staples Center, at Eleventh and Twelfth between Flower and Figueroa Streets (currently a parking lot). Plans at the time included a 45-story high-rise, a 33-story tower, and a 222-room hotel and retail space, but it's unclear how much the new owners will deviate from the previous designs and plans.