President Trump’s real estate company is telling potential buyers they have two more weeks to get in their bids to take over the lease of his Washington, D.C., Trump hotel.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday on the deadline, writing that the Trump Organization had hoped to get more than $500 million for the rights to lease the property, a historic post office that has become more than 260 hotel rooms and a lanfmark atrium where power brokers gather daily.
Potential buyers have balked at spending $2 million per hotel room, which isn’t uncommon in New York City but would be a new record for the nation’s capital.
The Journal reported that real estate brokers are indicating the Trumps may be willing to part with their hotel for less.
No one has reported that the Trumps have received any bids to date, or published a definite asking price.
President Trump’s real estate company is giving potential buyers two more weeks to submit bids to buy the lease of his D.C. hotel property
The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., features a spacious lobby and bar area, where allies of the president are often spotted hanging out
The Trump family cut a large ribbon at the official opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., in October 2016, just weeks before President Trump won the election
Another view of the lobby of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is located just blocks away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Eric Trump (left) and Donald Trump Jr. (right) took over the Trump Organization business when President Trump was elected president in November 2016
President Trump (center right) is shown during the 2014 groundbreaking of the D.C. property standing alongside sons Eric Trump (left) and Donald Trump Jr. (center left) and daughter Ivanka Trump (right), who became a top White House adviser
President Trump has been scrutinized for keeping the D.C. hotel. House Democrats are investigating the property’s lease with the federal government, while there’s a court case that claims Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause
The president’s Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. is an unusal property because his company doesn’t own the building.
One potential bidder who’s emerged is D.C. real estate developer Brian Friedman (pictured), who could partner with a company like Hilton to turn the Trump hotel into a Waldorf Astoria
Instead he leased the Old Post Office building from the federal government and, with extensions, that lease could carry on for nearly 100 years.
The Trump Organization put in approximately $210 million to renovate the property into a hotel, hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony just weeks before Trump won the 2016 presidential election.
He brought up the project while campaigning, saying he would be in D.C. no matter what. He even let reporters traipse through the hotel’s ballroom while it was being constructed after a press conference in May 2016.
The building had a number of uses over the years, including – more recently – as a food court.
The National Park Service continues to run a museum on the property, where visitors can ascend the clock tower.
Critics of the president have complained since Trump was sworn in that the property created a conflict.
For one, the General Services Administration’s lease says that no elected federal or D.C. official can benefit from the hotel.
The GSA, under the Trump administration, has ignored subpoenas from the Democrat-led House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure requesting information on how the agency deems it appropriate that the Trumps remain holding the lease.
The Trump initially hoped to get around $2 million per roon for the lease of the grand hotel just blocks from the White House
There are 263 rooms in President Trump’s Washington hotel, which is frequented by allies and friends of the president
There’s also an emoluments clause case that’s winding through the courts over whether President Trump is violating the Constitution when the hotel is patronized by foreign governments.
The Trumps are giving that money back to the U.S. government, they say.
‘People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell,’ Eric Trump said in a statement in October, previewing the sale.
The Wall Street Journal said a number of major hotel brands are looking at the property including Marriott and Hilton.
Hilton lost a bid to win the hotel property’s lease to the Trumps in 2011.
Those brands would likely partner up with a buyer to get the property.
One such buyer is D.C. real estate investor and developer Brian Friedman, who told The Washington Post last week that he planned to bid on the lease.
He said he wanted to partner with Hilton to turn the hotel into a Waldorf Astoria.
He also mentioned partnering with Rosewood, the Hong-Kong based chain that already has one Washington property, in its Georgetown neighborhood.