Page 41 - Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success

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T R UM P: N E V E R G I V E U P

build a high-rise. In fact, we added several floors to the hotel’s
design by buying the air rights from the neighboring properties.
Although we had the right to build a hotel with the height
we wanted, the fact that no one had done it before worked
against us. This project was the first time New York City’s
Department of Buildings had to consider a condominium hotel
in one of New York City’s manufacturing districts, which do
not permit residential use. The City’s antiquated zoning laws
and the local residents, together, created formidable obstacles.
New York City (unlike many other major U.S. destination
cities) had never before been confronted with a hotel comprised
entirely of condominiums. The key zoning consideration for the
City was that the units would not be residences for the owners,
but would be for transient occupancy. That meant we had to
prove to the Department of Buildings that Trump SoHo would
not be a residential building, but a building for short-term
stays—and I firmly believed we could convince the City officials
of this.
A condo hotel is not an apartment. It operates on the prem-
ise that the buyers have the right to use their condo units for
only a certain number of days each year, and when an owner is
not occupying their condo hotel unit the units get rented out as
hotel rooms. It’s a great setup because both the owner and the
management company collect revenues. The units in Trump
SoHo are not designed for permanent residences, nor would an
owner use his or her unit that way (the look, feel, and design of
a luxury hotel is far, far different than that of a residential
building). We worked tirelessly with the City to make our
intentions clear.
As expected, everyone and their cousin came after me for
this, and the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preser-
vation called my plan a “Trojan horse” way to sneak condos into
manufacturing districts across the City. They said my motives
were entirely covert. How a 45-story building can be considered

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