About a month later, realtor.com ran its own exposé on Metropolis - in particular, the developer’s unpaid bills. Please do read the article if you haven’t already; it’s shocking.
More recently, I was contacted by David (last name withheld), who owns and lives in one of the Metropolis condo units. The emptiness is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ll let David take it from here (as usual, the bolding is mine):
As per below, I have been trying to reach out to city officials concerning the issues we are having in our community, as described in https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/metropolis-los-angeles-ghost-condo-greenland-hoa-lawsuit/.
Unfortunately, I cannot seem to get a response from city hall, so if you have any avenues, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and kind regards,
David
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: David [REDACTED]
Date: Tue, Oct 20, 2026, 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: Metropolis Resident from Last Night’s Town Hall at Clifton’s With Mayor Bass
To: vahid.khorsand@lacity.org <vahid.khorsand@lacity.org>
Cc: <david.zahniser@latimes.com>Mr. Khorsand,
I hope all is well. I wanted to follow up regarding the below, as I have reached out to many city representatives over the last several months and have not received any response or acknowledgement.
I have planned calls with local television media, and a big concern is that no one in government seems to care about the problems that we are experiencing in Metropolis, which affect over 1000 Angelenos, and which could be the precursor to an Oceanwide level catastrophe.
Kind regards,
David
On Fri, Oct 16, 2026, 1:56 PM David [REDACTED] wrote:
Mr. Khorsand,
It was a pleasure speaking with you last night after Mayor Bass’s comments at the historic Clifton’s Cafeteria.
As I mentioned, I live and own a condo unit in the Metropolis Condominium complex, blocks away from the Crypto Arena, and next to Hotel Indigo in DTLA. You may have read some of the coverage concerning the serious issues we are having in our community, that affect over a thousand constituents. (See https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/metropolis-los-angeles-ghost-condo-greenland-hoa-lawsuit/).
The community comprises Hotel Indigo and two condominium high-rises and shares space with a ~52 story apartment building. It was built by a Chinese developer that was granted reductions on the payment of millions of dollars of assessment dues by the HOAs while it controlled the HOAs. These reductions have significantly impacted the community, led to California Department of Real Estate action, multiple lawsuits in Los Angeles County and Orange County, and arbitration.
Homeowners are hostage because while the builder still controls the HOAs, owners have virtually no voice and limited visibility into matters of consequence to perhaps one of the most important investments they have (i.e., HOA running illegal elections entrenching the developer’s power and disobeying a court order voiding an election, and refusing to produce fire permits for the building, refusing to produce elevator permits for the building, and refusing to produce the five year regulation 4 certification for the building, and failing to regularly and timely circulate financial records). These issues speak to the financial viability of the community as well as habitability.
Significantly, now the HOAs have settled major construction defect claims with the builder, but the rub is that the boards settling the claims and deciding how to use the proceeds are controlled by the builder, and they are not being transparent with the settlement or repair plans.
Finally, not only do these issues affect members of our community, they spill out into broader downtown and Los Angeles because Los Angeles County records disclose property tax delinquency at the builder’s hotel for 2024 and 2025, which, I believe directly affects the availability of city services for us all (see the attached property tax statements for Hotel Indigo). This is especially meaningful because, as a community, many of us have been asking for a stronger police presence.
As our elected representative with an interest in seeing a vibrant DTLA as we approach LA2028, I hope the Mayor will help provide one of the largest, if not the largest, mixed-use complexes in the West coast with solutions and a path forward.
Kind regards,
David
YIKES. (And thanks again, David, for sharing your experience.)
And in case anyone forgot, Metropolis’ developer, Greenland USA, has ties to disgraced former Councilman Jose Huizar, (paywalled, sorry) who is currently incarcerated for racketeering and tax evasion. (Greenland USA released their own statement about this.)