The Trump Soho and Donald Trump Jr.

Trump Soho is “subtly” opening this Friday, but expect “something a little more lavish” in the fall when “the world’s in a little better place,” Donald Trump Jr. told the New York Times. Trump, who is an executive president at the Trump Organization along with his sister, Ivanka and brother, Eric, shied away from the title heir apparent to the Trump throne. He declined to disclose how sales are doing at the new condo-hotel, but said units, ranging from under 500 square feet to 10,000 square feet, are going for roughly $2,900 a foot. Hotel stays are starting at $389 per night, though the Trumps are hoping to ramp up the rate to $500 per night by the fall. Trump is also managing leasing at Downtown office tower 40 Wall Street, where he said occupancy has risen to above 75 percent, from 60-something one year ago.

Renderings from the Trump Soho hotel

The controversial Trump Soho has scheduled its first round of unit closings by mid-April, not long after it officially opens April 9, The Real Deal has learned. The high-rise condo-hotel has been delayed due to years of legal wrangling with community opponents that have challenged the property’s zoning, a fatal 2008 crane collapse at the site and a weak credit environment that slowed financing. “Trump Soho, the first downtown property for the Trump Hotel Collection, is opening April 9, 2010,” according to an e-mailed statement from the developer. “The closings will begin after the hotel opens.” The 46-story property at 246 Spring Street, at the corner of Varick Street, broke ground in 2007 and was previously scheduled to open in the fall of 2009, then on Feb. 1, 2010. [more]

Could a lack of counter space be forcing one of New York’s premier chefs to pack his bags for a new home? Daniel Boulud, the French restaurateur, has put his three-bedroom condominium unit at 610 Park Avenue, above his famed restaurant Daniel at 65th Street, on the market, brokers say. The 2,500-square-foot Upper East Side apartment, which has three bathrooms, is on the market for $6.5 million, according to a listing at that street address that first appeared two weeks ago on Brown Harris Stevens’ Web site, without pictures of the kitchen (see accompanying slide show). That listing does not have a unit number, and the agent for it, John Burger, would not confirm that the apartment is Boulud’s. “I can’t comment on any of my clients,” Burger said. But city property records indicate Boulud does own a condo in the building. And one of the photos in Burger’s listings shows some furniture upholstered in striped animal-hide-like fabric that would seem to match the “zebra-print couch” Boulud refers to in a 2003 interview in the New York Times interview about his home. [more]

Don’t expect Trump’s Atlantic City hotels to take on new nomenclature anytime soon. Trump Organization CEO Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka, the company’s executive vice president, met with bondholders yesterday over three of Trump Entertainment Resorts’ Atlantic City casinos. The two sides reached an agreement in which Trump will retain a 10 percent stake and the company keeps control of the right to use his namesake, the Associated Press reported. The two sides had been locked in stalemate, with Trump offering $14 million to pay off bondholders and the bondholders ponying up $225 million to buy the company out of bankruptcy.

Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump is facing litigation from a group of 30 buyers who allege he misrepresented his stake in a $220 million luxury condominium project in downtown Tampa that failed after the development partners went into bankruptcy. In a state lawsuit filed Tuesday in Hillsborough County, Fla., the buyers allege that in 2005, Trump presented himself as an active investor in the 190-unit Trump Tower Tampa, while hiding a confidential million dollar licensing deal, in which Trump would earn a $4 million fee, plus 50 percent of future net earnings by Tampa-based SimDag/Robel, the lead development firm. “They were specifically targeted by Trump’s promotional [team] that Trump was building the tower,” said Daniel Clark, an attorney with Clark & Martino, one of two firms representing the buyers. [more]

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and 500 guests gathered at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ, yesterday for the merging of two massive New York real estate families. Ivanka Trump, the daughter of real estate mogul Donald Trump, and Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer and son of New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner, became engaged July 16 this year. The Kushner-Trump wedding drew such bigwigs as Andrew Cuomo, Sheldon Silver, Rudy Giuliani and Amir Korangy, publisher of The Real Deal. The bride, who said via Twitter that she went on a “gorgeous hike” prior to the nuptials, wore a lace-sleeved gown, reportedly inspired by Grace Kelly. The weekend marriage will be followed by another, reportedly twice as large, reception this Wednesday, after which the couple plans to honeymoon in Africa. [Post] and

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Donald Trump, Jr. spoke at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, along with Michael Atwell, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of Middle East operations (pictured second from the right in the third photo)

Dubai’s furious growth over the past five years has slowed exponentially with a greater presence of stalled plans for dozens of projects in what has been the busiest of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates. Kicking off the festivities this morning in the largest annual four-day real estate conference at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, was the executive vice president for the Trump Organization, Donald Trump, Jr., at what was billed as the international keynote presentation. In his talk, Trump touted the steps that the local government has taken to stabilize the financial system, saying that he has no doubt that Dubai real estate, which has contracted considerably in the past year, will bounce back, though not to previous levels. [more]

From the October issue: It’s the New York real estate marriage of the century: Later this
month, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are set to get married before 500
guests in a ceremony at the Trump National Golf Club. Jared, the boy-wonder publisher who made a name for himself when he
bought the New York Observer, is the son of Charles Kushner, founder of
the multi-billion-dollar real estate empire Kushner Companies, where
Jared is also an executive. Ivanka, of course, is the daughter of The
Donald and a vice president at the Trump Organization. Industry folk think a union between the two is almost guaranteed to
result in a real estate powerhouse. The question on some minds as the
real estate golden boy and girl prepare to marry: What would a
prenuptial agreement between the two look like?