Trump Plans 45 Story SOHO Condo-Hotel

[New Jack City]

NY POST

DOWNTOWN DONALD PLANS LUXURY SOHO CONDO-HOTEL


SUMPTUOUS IN SOHO: Donald Trump, daughter Ivanka and son Donald Trump Jr. are taking their developing act to SoHo. Above is a rendering of their planned 45-story luxury hotel tower.

By BRADEN KEIL

June 5, 2006 -- Donald Trump is submitting plans to construct a 45-story luxury high-rise condominium hotel on the outskirts of SoHo, The Post has learned.

And barring any glitches in the approval process, groundbreaking on the structure at 246 Spring, between Varick St. and Sixth Avenue, is expected to begin before the end of this year, according to Donald Trump Jr. - who, along with his father and sister Ivanka, is overseeing the project.

It will also be one of the two projects that will be offered to tonight's winner of "The Apprentice."

Included in the plans for the development, whose working name is Trump International Hotel & Tower SoHo, are more than 400 hotel condo rooms and suites, a spa facility and a high-end restaurant. It also calls for 28,000 square feet of retail space.

While the hotel will have the typical Trump glitz, with the public rooms designed by renowned architect David Rockwell, Trump Jr. said the vibe will be a younger "downtown chic" version of Trump International Hotel & Tower at Columbus Circle.

The building, which will rise in a fringe area of SoHo - about three blocks from the Holland Tunnel - will tower above the nondescript neighborhood.

"You're going to get incredible 360-degree views from about the 12th floor up," said Trump Jr. "They're almost like the views in Jersey City of Manhattan, but you're still in New York."

"I'm very excited to hear about it," said developer Steven Witkoff, who has several downtown projects in the works including the condo conversion of the Woolworth Building and Cipriani Club Residences now being marketed at 55 Wall St.

"[Trump's] very creative and he always brings sizzle to an area."

The developers of the building include Tamir Sapir, the former cab driver who made headlines by paying $40 million for the Duke Semans mansion.

[3tmk]

Seems like the Trumps have run out of names.
I think it's a good tower, I like the angle and all, and as much as I like diversifying neighborhoods by alternating stone with glass, etc. somehow SoHo doesn't seem like the best place for this tower.
I do hope they at least keep one area of manhattan under height restriction, but let's hope it won't be just Greenwich and expand the area a little bit, and keep some of that old New York feel, whatever that may be... or perhaps they'll leave Brooklyn alone instead.

[7 World Trade]

i agree. the fact that residential skyscrapers of significant height are starting to sprout up in various low-rise dominated neighborhood's sort of disturbing. do that too much, and Manhattan's skyline'll start looking like those from Asian cities.

this tower's decent. looks like it'll feel right at home in the west 42nd st. neighborhood, and if i get a say on where it gets built, i'd replace Calatrava's 80 South st. with it. but i don't think a glass tower like this is meant to stand all by itself in a low-rise neighborhood.

[centreoftheuniverse]

It's not technically in SoHo, even though they will market it as such. It's in a part of town called Hudson Square. There isn't much going on in there except for some large mini storage type buildings and the Holland Tunnel entrances/exits. The site is currently an empty lot. This project will be good for the area.

[TalB]

Originally Posted by centreoftheuniverse

It's not technically in SoHo, even though they will market it as such. It's in a part of town called Hudson Square. There isn't much going on in there except for some large mini storage type buildings and the Holland Tunnel entrances/exits. The site is currently an empty lot. This project will be good for the area.

When the article said that it would be on the outskirts of SoHo, they meant that it would be outside the Castiron Dist, which is a designated landmark, since the western end of SoHo is not preserved.

[warmaster08876]

very nice, its probally a fortune to live there, shame...

[centreoftheuniverse]

NIMBYs are trying to fight this one.

[AirJay78]

if it was in soho, then it definitely wouldn't go with the area. The area has a flow and a style to it that this building does not represent. But since its probably not in soho like u said, I guess my statement doesn't matter, lol...

[mohammed wong]

I had never heard of hudson square but I found some information on it......
interesting neigborhood, the below is just from the visitor guide from nyc.com



Hudson Square, like NoLita, is as much the creation of Real Estate branding than the rise of an organic community. Bounded by the Hudson River (on the west), Morton Street (on the north), Canal Street (on the south) and Avenue of the Americas (on the east), Hudson Square is often thought of as western SoHo. However, the area is unique enough to deserve its own moniker. Historically populated by publishers and printers of yesteryear, this area is rapidly giving way to an eclectic mix of ad agencies, architects, video and filmmakers, software developers and new media firms. It also features some of downtown's hipper night clubs.

Hudson Square is unique among neighborhoods in that a great deal of the land and buildings here are owned by one company, Trinity Real Estate, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trinity Church. Indeed, historic Trinity Church, founded in 1697, has always been one of New York City's largest landlords. The relationship between Trinity Church and Hudson Square dates to the early 18th century, when Queen Anne of England ceded a large tract of land in lower Manhattan to the parish. As the owner, leasing agent and manager of approximately six million square feet in 23 buildings in the Hudson Square area, Trinity has played, and will continue to play, a leading role in developing downtown Manhattan.

[TalB]

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_18...altstrump.html
Volume 19 | Issue 33 | December 15 - 21, 2006

City halts Trump project

By Lincoln Anderson

The discovery of human remains at the site of the planned Trump Soho condo-hotel at Spring and Varick Sts. led the Department of Buildings on Tuesday to issue a stop-work order for the project.

Jennifer Givner, a D.O.B. spokesperson, said the remains were removed by the city’s medical examiner for closer inspection. Lisi de Bourbon, Landmarks spokesperson, said Landmarks gave advice to the developers — Trump and Bayrock/Sapir — mainly that they retain their own archaeologist. “Trump’s people have hired an archaeologist and are in the process of figuring out what to do with the remains,” de Bourbon said.

Buildings spokesperson Givner said it was a “unique case.”

Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation — who has been a leading critic of the planned 45-story condo-hotel — found that the site was formerly home to the city’s oldest Presbyterian church, which was razed in the 1960s and became a parking lot. Berman said the remains may have been from a cemetery attached to the church or a burial ground predating the church.

On Wednesday, the developers were quoted in the New York Post as saying that the spot where the remains were found would be an open plaza and not covered by the building.

“Whoever’s bodies they are, they deserve a certain level of respect and care — and I don’t think it should be left to Trump to do that,” said Berman. “He has a vested interest in plowing ahead with his construction.”

Berman and other opponents have been fighting the condo-hotel, charging that people will be living in the condos year-round, in violation of the site’s zoning. The city hasn’t issued a permit for the building yet, but has allowed excavation of the site.

Realtors for Trump were marketing the condos on the Web for use as a “primary residence,” and the city’s tourist agency, NYC & Co., also had a listing that the units were for “year-round” occupancy. Both listings have since been pulled.

Asked if this would affect Buildings’ decision, Givner said they were just “marketing” and that Buildings will make its decision based on the application. But she said D.O.B. won’t approve any residential use at the site. “We’re not ignoring these advertisements. We see them,” Givner said. “That’s not the permitted use for this type of neighborhood and the department’s not going to approve plans for long-term residence.”

Berman said he was “appalled” to hear that D.O.B. hasn’t been more alarmed by the Web listings.

“What more evidence do they need to be presented with? Everyone except the city and D.O.B. gets it that this is going to be used as residences,” he said. “Trump’s realtors get it. Trump gets it.”

[TalB]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/loca...p-424058c.html
Donald's tower bad fit for SoHo, activists rail

Donald Trump's latest project is a "45-story square peg in a round hole" that violates zoning laws and doesn't belong in low-rise SoHo, protesters charged yesterday.

About 50 picketers gathered next to the planned site of Trump SoHo condominium-hotel at the corner of Spring and Varick Sts. to urge the city not to issue The Donald a building permit.

The area is zoned as a manufacturing district, but allows for traditional hotels. Preservationists charged the Trump building will be purely residential and could set a bad precedent for development around the city.

Jimmy Vielkind

Originally published on March 5, 2007

[TalB]

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_20...trumpsoho.html
Volume 19 Issue 42 | March 2 - 8, 2007

Don’t Trump Soho, condo-hotel protesters beg city

By Lincoln Anderson


Downtown Express photo by Jefferson Siegel

Residents make their feelings known at Sunday’s protest.

Chanting “Trump’s gotta go!” 150 hearty Soho and Hudson Square residents braved the cold and wind last Sunday to raise their voices against Donald Trump’s Soho Condo-Hotel.

They sang “Stop the Trump” to the tune of taps. They blew “Trump whistles.”

And they only hoped that City Hall heard them.

They gathered at the corner of Spring and Varick Sts., where Trump and his development partners, Bayrock and Sapir, are trying to build a 45-story condominium hotel the opponents say would flagrantly violate zoning. Yet, so far, the city hasn’t indicated it will deny the project a building permit.

“No skyscrapers in Soho” read one sign held aloft.

“A 45-story target? Hell no!” read another sign a woman had taped to a broom’s bristles and hoisted overhead, obviously reflecting the feeling that a glittering luxury edifice by America’s most famous developer would be a virtual magnet for a terrorist attack.

The project is in a manufacturing-zoned district — yet ads for it keep saying the units are for residential use. After the developers called earlier ads a mistake that they wouldn’t repeat, just two weeks ago an ad for the condo-hotel in New York magazine pitched it as a great residential opportunity.

“This is a knife into the heart of this area,” Assemblymember Deborah Glick told the crowd. “It’s illegal, inappropriate development and cannot be allowed. This is a trial balloon,” she warned. “Other places will be destroyed if Trump succeeds here.”

While hotels are allowed in manufacturing-zoned districts, the project’s critics say it will function essentially as a residential building, setting a precedent for similar projects elsewhere, leading to the weakening of the city’s other manufacturing districts.

“What Donald Trump and his partners want to do here violates the law,” said Queens Councilmember Tony Avella, chairperson of the City Council’s Zoning Committee. “But the city is playing along with it and saying, ‘Maybe we’ll work out a restrictive declaration.’

“If you allow this to happen,” Avella said, “you will give carte blanche to every developer in this city to ruin the manufacturing districts.” Avella’s northeast Queens neighborhood includes manufacturing zones he says would be threatened if condo-hotels could make inroads there.

David Reck, president of the Friends of Hudson Square, said that the community finally was able to get an appropriate rezoning of Hudson Square a few years ago, but that Trump’s project “has totally stood zoning on its ear.”

“He cannot build under the existing zoning,” stressed Andrew Berman, director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “How many chances are they going to get?” Berman asked of the ads. “Trump’s been advertising it from the start as residences.”

“Jail him!” someone in the crowd shouted.

“Get Rosie O’Donnell out there!” somebody else chimed in.

Speakers said local manufacturing and commercial uses ringing the site, like 1-800-Postcards, other printing and Internet companies, a furniture-manufacturing company and Manhattan Mini Storage, all would be threatened by the 45-story condo-hotel.

Speaking afterwards, Glick said, “If you eliminate the floor plates, the new media will have no place to go. The emerging media of photovoltaic and various types of digital production — that’s what would fit into these manufacturing zones.”

The Department of Buildings is negotiating a restrictive declaration with Trump and his partners, under which individuals’ stays at the hotel would be limited to a certain number of days per year. Under this agreement, Trump would contract with a group to monitor that the rules are followed. D.O.B. is waiting to finalize the agreement before it decides whether to issue a building permit. The project currently only has a permit to build the foundation.

Asked about the possibility of a lawsuit, Berman said that would happen if and when the permit is issued.

City Councilmember Chris Quinn, who represents Hudson Square, did not attend the protest because she was in Queens at the gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Avella said he’d been to it many times but felt the anti-condo-hotel rally was more important. Glick said she never goes to the Queens parade, feeling it’s just a way to “get off the hook” for the larger parade’s not allowing gays to march under a banner.

Anthony Hogrebe, a Quinn spokesperson, said they are continuing to give input on the restrictive declaration and have a meeting scheduled with the developers this week to discuss the repeated problems with the ads that pitch the condo-hotel as residential.

[NorthernIL Mike]

“A 45-story target? Hell no!” read another sign a woman had taped to a broom’s bristles and hoisted overhead, obviously reflecting the feeling that a glittering luxury edifice by America’s most famous developer would be a virtual magnet for a terrorist attack."

LoL, some people. Bogeyman is still around....

[Route]

is this a go or not?

[cincobarrio]

no go please

[TalB]

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_20...rstrumped.html
Volume 19 Issue 52 | May 11 -17, 2007

Neighbors Trumped! City says yes to Donald’s tower

By Albert Amateau



The Department of Buildings on Tuesday approved the plans and the application for a building permit for Donald Trump’s proposed 42-story condo-hotel on Spring St. in a manufacturing district in Hudson Square, a project that has roused intense opposition from preservation advocates.


The city approved the application for 242 Spring St. at Varick St. but has not yet issued the final permit to continue construction on the site, where the foundation is nearly completed, according to a D.O.B. statement.


The developer, actually Bayrock/Sapir Organization, with the participation of Trump, still has to submit nearly 20 technical documents before a permit could be issued, according to the statement.


However, the outstanding documents were being submitted on Tuesday afternoon, according to Julius Schwarz, president of the Bayrock Group, who said he was confident he would have the permit in a day or two. Schwarz said he expects the hotel would be ready for occupancy in two years.


Nevertheless, opponents of the project, led by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, are considering going to court to overturn the application approval.


“Unfortunately, the city has decided that the interests of billionaire developers trump zoning, protection for our neighborhoods,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of G.V.S.H.P., in a prepared statement issued on April 8.


The project is located in an M1-6 manufacturing zone where hotels are permitted but permanent residential uses are banned. The Trump project, however, is for a condo-hotel with the units owned by individuals who rent them to guests and may not themselves live in them permanently.


While condo-hotels exist elsewhere in the city, the Trump project is the first in a manufacturing zone. Berman and other opponents contend that the hotel designation is just a ruse to avoid the ban on permanent residence. Over the last year, opponents have discovered several advertisements that referred to the project as a residence. But Bayrock insisted that the ads were a mistake and not authorized by the developer.


Bayrock last week signed a voluntary restrictive declaration with the city restricting condo owners or guests from living in their units for more than four months per year. Specifically, the declaration says that occupants may not live in their units for more that 29 days in a 36-day period and for not more than 120 days in a calendar year.


The restrictive declaration also calls for the hotel management to monitor the occupancy of each unit to ensure that the building is really a hotel and not a permanent residence. Computer software must be able to identify when each occupant is about to exceed the limit. The condo-hotel will impose a double daily rate for each day the occupancy is exceeded and one half the amount will be deemed a violation and paid to the city. For repeated violations, the city may require the condo-hotel to hire an independent inspector to conduct an audit and make recommendations that the condo-hotel must follow.


The declaration says the hotel management must make annual occupancy reports, certified by a Certified Public Accountant, showing whether a unit has exceed the occupancy limit. It is not clear if the city will try and monitor how closely the developers are keeping track of the condo owners. Kate Lindquist, Buildings’ spokesperson, did not respond directly to that question.


“The annual occupancy reports will be telling,” she said. “The city will pursue all enforcement opportunities available.”


Berman, however, said the declaration is almost entirely self-monitored. “If and only if the condo-hotel’s own records consistently show people are breaking the law do they then start to get independently audited,” he said.


Berman also said he had been told that the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement would be in charge of enforcing the declaration. But he noted that only the Buildings Department is specified in the declaration; “We all know the department is understaffed and unreliable,” he added.


Nevertheless, Schwarz said he intends to follow the letter and the spirit of the declaration. “It took a long time to negotiate that agreement and the city was very diligent despite our frustration,” said Schwarz.


He added that Trump and his grown children, Donald, Ivanka and Eric, have been active in all aspects of the project. Schwarz said the condo-hotel is an as-of-right use in the location and he intends to complete the foundation and bring cranes to the site immediately.


Berman, however, said, “If you own a condo and are living in it four months of the year, that’s a second home, not a transient hotel. The reality is that many owners will live there, not just for four months, but year-round.” Berman also claimed that previous city rulings have said such units could not be made subject to lease, sale or other arrangement, to which the Trump condo units would be subject.


The project, whose height is equivalent to a 45-story building, is in an area of low-rise lofts and 15-story warehouses and would be the tallest building between Midtown and the Financial District, Berman said.


Berman said he is considering legal action “to force the city to enforce the law and stop the project.”

Albert@DowntownExpress.com

[calenzano]

feet????

[Taylorhoge]

leave it to Trump to destroy the character of New York.This building will stick out like a soar thumb.Ive hated this project ever since it was shown on the appretice actually I stopped watching the show after it was unveiled.

[Don Omar]

Trump's Condo-Hotel Gambit Works; City Approves Soho Tower



5/8/07
By:Alec Appelbaum
nymag.com

That sound you just heard is the last huff of Soho's industrial grit. With unceremonious filings last night, the city cleared the Trump Organization to build a 41-story tower on one of Soho's last scraps of industrial land. The Trump Soho project calls itself a "condo-hotel," a taxonomy that lets its developer build what some might call a residential tower in a manufacturing zone without special permits. The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation calls it a precedent for sneaking other condos into other manufacturing zones around town, distorting property values and sundering urban character. For months, GVSHP has urged city agencies to drag the project through a public zoning review to air its potential neighborliness. But on April 26, the development team promised to let shareholders use the units for a maximum of 120 days a year (and for only 29 of every 36 days). Now, GVSHP chief Andrew Berman tells us: "This is a case of the city not enforcing its own laws, and that makes them vulnerable to a lawsuit." Does that mean he's threatening one?

[TalB]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09102007...p_triumphs.htm
TRUMP TRIUMPHS

CITY BACKS DONALD IN SOHO FIGHT

By BRADEN KEIL

September 10, 2007 -- Donald Trump's controversial, 46-story condo-hotel Trump SoHo will continue to rise, thanks to a big legal boost from the city's Department of Buildings.

Mona Sehgal, general counsel for the department, shot down a lengthy letter of protest by SoHo Alliance lawyer - and former top department legal eagle - Stuart Klein, ripping two of his four issues as "irrelevant" and "without merit."

Klein had maintained that Trump's project - which critics say would alter the aesthetic of the artsy neighborhood - should have its building permit revoked and that the department "was conspiring to violate the zoning resolution," according to an interview he gave with The Villager community newspaper.

He argued that the sale of hotel units violated zoning laws and that the condo plan should be reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission because some of the rules governing the units - touted as investment opportunities - are overly restrictive to owners.

"It was an uphill battle, because everyone was saying that this was Trump's Trojan horse, that it was a residence," said Trump lawyer Julius Schwarz. "We finally convinced people and signed a restrictive declaration with the city that says it's a hotel and that people can only use it for a certain number of days in the year."

Owners, according to the agreement, are restricted to no more than 120 days per year and no more than 29 days in a 36-day period.

"Now, [Klein] says that because it's too restrictive, it could be an SEC violation," chuckled Schwarz.

Klein could not be reached for comment.

Trump, obviously pleased with the latest news, said his project, which has already risen 11 floors, will be an epicenter for growth in the area.

"When completed, it will be one of the finest buildings of its kind anywhere in the world," said Trump.

He added that buyers from all over the world have put deposits down on units that are going for up to $3,000 per square foot.

Trump previously told The Post that, while most guest rooms in the hotel will comprise studios and one-bedroom units, some of the "suites" will measure up 7,000 square feet.

braden.keil@nypost.com