Page 85 - 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

At one point, Penn Central wanted me to pay a nonrefund-
able $250,000 for an exclusive option on the property. I had to
stall on that. That was a lot of money for an obviously risky situ-
ation. In order to remain in the process but to have more time, I
had my lawyers nitpick the contracts and slow everything down.
Meanwhile, I looked for a designer who had what it took to
make a spectacular building. One young architect named Der
Scutt that I contacted was immediately interested. He under-
stood that I wanted to change the dingy hotel completely, to
basically wrap it in something new and shiny and give the whole
area a new face.
Note that I wasn’t sure this deal was even going to go
through, but because my goal was so clear in my mind, I went
ahead and took the time to meet with an architect, as if the
project was a done deal. That’s positive thinking, but also prag-
matic thinking—keep things moving forward! If one thing
doesn’t work out, another will. Meantime, I will have met and
connected with an architect that I respected and who respected
me. If this deal fell through, I’d already know someone to reach
out to for the next big project.
I hired Der Scutt to do some drawings and asked him to
make the presentation look as sleek as possible. I also started to
look for an operator for the hotel. The hotel business was new
to me at the time, so I needed to find someone with experience,
a lot of it, because my proposal was for a 1,400-room hotel with
1.5 million square feet. That’s big.
I wanted a big operator, and the big names then were Hilton,
Hyatt, Sheraton, Holiday Inn, and Ramada Inn. To me, the top
of the line was Hyatt. Their hotels were contemporary and light,
which would be the perfect antidote to the dark and dreary
Commodore. It was also a fact that they didn’t have a presence in
New York City, though Hilton did. They might be interested.
I was correct—they were. I called up the president, and we
discussed a partnership. However, he was prone to changing his

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