Webcor sues for unpaid bills in Los Angeles tower project

Dive Brief:

General contractor Webcor Construction is suing the developer of the $1 billion Metropolis mixed-use project in downtown Los Angeles for alleged unpaid bills, The Real Deal reported.
Webcor claims that Greenland USA, the U.S. arm of China-based Greenland Group, owes it $9.8 million for work performed under a negotiated $436 million contract that was supposed to cover the costs of extra and change order work plus expenses associated with any delays on the project's Tower I and Tower II condominium projects. Webcor has also filed a mechanics lien against the project.
Webcor is the prime contractor for the two towers plus the property's 350-room Hotel Indigo, which Greenland has been trying to sell since last year, according to The Real Deal. Webcor's contracts for the project total a reported $810 million. Webcor filed its suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 10, but court records indicate that Greenland has not yet been served.

Dive Insight:

When the Metropolis is complete, it will include three residential towers — Tower I, Tower II and The Penthouse Collection — the hotel and 70,000 square feet of retail space. The design for Tower I offers 41,000 square feet of amenity space and Tower II features a 1.5-acre "sky park."

Webcor has also filed a mechanics lien against another Chinese developer, Oceanwide Holdings, for alleged unpaid bills on a second $1 billion mixed-use project in Los Angeles. The contractor filed a lien for almost $53 million against the Oceanwide Plaza project, but as of February, total contractor liens against that development added up to almost $100 million. As of that date, general contractor Lendlease had not filed a lien or revealed if Oceanwide owed it any money, but referenced the developer's late payments in a January letter to contractors announcing the suspension of work.

In March, it looked like work had restarted at the project, but soon after stalled again. When work on the project first stopped in January, Oceanwide claimed that it was restructuring the project's finances and estimated that work would restart last February.

Webcor is working on another Oceanwide project in San Francisco as part of a joint venture with Swinerton Builders, the $1.6 billion Oceanwide Center. In a June 27 construction update, the project team, which also includes AECOM Tishman as construction manager, said they were continuing with excavation, getting ready for a big concrete pour at the end of this month and continuing site utility work. Thus far, there have been no reports of mechanics liens or large unpaid bills on that project.