New owners of LA's 'graffiti towers' would need to remove all that paint. We got them a quote

News came this week that a buyer is in sight for the so-called "graffiti towers" in downtown L.A. — known in its better days as Oceanwide Plaza before falling on hard times to become, to its critics, a landmark of shame.

The purchase, priced at $470 million, is subject to final court approval that could happen in a couple of months.

Construction of the $1 billion luxury high-rise residential and hotel project began in 2015 with the aim to transform downtown Los Angeles. Four years later, the three towers sat skeletal after their Chinese developer ran out of money to finish the job. The buildings gained worldwide notoriety in 2024 when a video of its thoroughly tagged up exteriors, sprouting hundreds of feet above ground, went viral.

For the would-be joint owners — KPC Group and Lendlease — one of the first orders of business will be to strip away all the graffiti.

A view of the so-called Graffiti Towers, where graffiti writers tagged 40 floors of an unfinished luxury skyscraper development on March 20, 2024 in Los Angeles, California

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Mario Tama

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So how would it be done?

Dustin Coad is the owner of Kaptive Construction and Preservation, a firm that mainly specializes in restoring the facades of historic buildings.

"So tile, brick stone, marble, terracotta, concrete, and then also any type of historic windows," Coad said.

Kaptive, which has been in the business for more than three decades, has done graffiti removal work on a number of architectural gems, including the Merritt building on Broadway in downtown L.A.

With Oceanwide Plaza, as with any other structures, graffiti removal methods depend on the building materials.

If the frames of the towers were made with poured concrete, Coad said you could apply a chemical stripping agent on the surface and leave it soaking overnight.

"And then you kind of peel them off," he said. " And that's hopeful."

Another option is to blast the paint off with tiny little beads of glass.

 "[They] are pressurized and hit the building and kind of explode and would pull the paint off without damaging the concrete or the substrate," Coad said.

That's the method Kaptive used to remove decades-old graffiti from the marble facade of the Merritt building — a more damage-prone material than concrete.

"We deal with concrete all the time — but old concrete — newer concrete is more solid and should be easy to remove," he said.

The so-called Graffiti Towers in 2024.

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Mario Tama

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The tough part

While the exterior — if it is indeed poured concrete — is a relatively straightforward job, the windows are not.

"The vast majority of the graffiti is on the windows," he said. "I have no idea what films or elements or whatever [else] may be on that glass. The chemical agent may work poorly with whatever is applied to that glass."

So the first thing Coad would do is to call up the manufacturer for recommendations, and then test things out.

"Option 1 is to remove it. Option 2 is to replace everything," Coad said. "And Option 1 will be significantly cheaper, but it will not be cheap."

Above all, safety first

The so-called Graffiti Towers behind Crypto.com Arena in 2024.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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Another major consideration is safety. After all, each of the towers is more than 500 feet tall, with graffiti on multiple floors.

"Number one is looking at it from how would we access all of the panes of glass from the exterior of the buildings," he said, adding that he would work with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from the get-go to put in place the safest possible work environment for his crew.

"Everybody will be harnessed in. There'll be the main line, there'll be a safety line, and I think we would want to erect some sort of netting or railing," he said.  "I want to make sure if they slip that nothing's going to happen to them other than maybe a bruise."

Time line and price tag

Coad said it's going to require spending time out at the towers, followed by mockups and sample strip tests to arrive at an accurate quote and timeframe for the project. Ballpark-wise, " hundreds upon hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not in the million range."

One thing he is certain about.

" It's not gonna be cheap," he said. "It will take a very long time."