The deal could ultimately reach close to $ 400 million, according to a source in the US newspaper, double the $ 200 million the Trump Organization is estimated to have spent to renovate the old federal office building into a luxury hotel since leased it to the General Services Administration in 2012.
The CGI firm is already in talks with hotel operators about removing Trump’s name from the hotel, according to the Journal. The hotel would later be related to Hilton’s luxury brand Waldorf Astoria.
The outlet maintains that the Trump Organization was in “advanced talks” about the sale of the hotel lease last month.
It should be remembered that the Trump Organization took over the hotel lease in 2012 before Donald Trump became president of the United States. Trump’s firm even won the lease from big chains like Marriott and Hilton.
Over the past few years, the hotel has become a site of controversy, especially since its opening in 2016, due to concerns about how forestry and domestic interests could try to win over the Trump administration by using the hotel.
Trump reported in past financial statements that the hotel earned more than $ 150 million in revenue during his presidency, but documents released by the Democratic-led committee show that the hotel needed a loan of more than $ 27 million from one of the holding companies. of the former president.
The hotel also received a $ 170 million loan from Deutsche Bank, which allowed the Trump Organization to delay payments for six years, according to the committee.
It is not yet clear when the transaction between the Trump Organization and CGI Merchant Group can be closed.
Trump brand issues
Even before he was president, the Trump name valued any property that bore it. So much so that, before reaching the White House, the former president had two types of businesses. The first was to put his brand on any urban development made by him, which included apartment buildings, hotels, clubs, and casinos.
But he had another even more profitable product: simply selling the name to third parties engaged in those same activities in exchange for 15% of the income. In other words, the five letters of the president’s last name increased the value of anything with brick.
Today the opposite happens. Everyone who has those letters in their building is seeing how they can remove them.
The most visible example is in Chicago, where the iconic Trump International Hotel & Tower is located, an imposing 98-story skyscraper that includes apartments, restaurants, a hotel, and a convention center located on the luxurious Magnificent Mile, the most expensive of the city. It opened its doors in 2009, amidst the general applause of the critics who saw a great architectural work with the letters T, R, U, M, P six meters high, located in a space of 266 square meters, which a view of your brand from many perspectives is guaranteed.
Today the city is preparing a plan to remove that immense seal from the property after the acts of vandalism that occurred in the Capitol and the confirmation of the second impeachment to the president for having incited them to revolt.
