Here's a bit of industry gossip: A lender to Manhattan's Trump SoHo hotel and condominium is foreclosing on the property and putting it up for sale.
According to the Wall Street Journal, real-estate investor CIM Group, which currently holds a junior loan on the property, is taking over the property as part of a foreclosure process and hired brokerage Eastdil Secured to auction the property.
The 46-story tower is home to 391 condo units that can only be used by their owners for 120 days out of the year; the rest of the time they are sold as hotel rooms, with owners sharing in the rental revenue. According the Businessweek, the property recorded approximately 122 completed deals, with 58 units currently listed for sale. Prices on these units range from $915,000 for a studio and $50 million for a 10,000-square-foot presidential suite.
“The challenge of this building is a very high price per square foot paired with extremely high carrying charges related to the hotel services they were trying to market,” Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, told Businessweek.
For example, a 422-square-foot unit in the building for sale for $1.53 million has monthly common charges of $3,505, or around $8 per square foot, over four times the Manhattan-wide average for a condominium.
In 2010, CIM offered new financing to the property to help Sapir and Bayrock pay down $100 million in debt the building owed to iStar Financial. At the time, the building's existing mortgage was $295 million.
Realty Today reported that Sapir is considering re-purchasing the building if the auction goes poorly. Regardless of the hotel's ownership, the Trump organization will continue to manage the building.
Not far away in Atlantic City, Trump says his is considering re-taking control of the Trump Entertainment casino company bearing his name, reported ABC News. According to Trump, buying back the company would come down to price.
The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino closed Tuesday. It first opened in 1984.
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