Mosque investor calls Trump’s buyout offer a publicity stunt

September 10, 2010 08:30AM

Donald Trump’s offer to buy out the investor who controls the site of the planned Park51 mosque and Islamic cultural center at a 25 percent premium isn’t doing much to calm the waters surrounding the controversial project. Trump’s letter to investor Hisham Elzanaty, dated and released by his publicist yesterday, was flatly rejected as a “cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight,” his attorney told the Associated Press. Trump had written that his offer was intended to “end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation” despite his belief that the location is not “a spectacular one” for his own investment purposes. Elzanaty is part of Soho Properties, a real estate investment firm which bought the building for $4.85 million in cash, according to media reports. On a recent episode of “The Late Show with David Letterman” said that from a public relations standpoint, the developers would be met with “good will” from the public if they agreed to move to an alternate location. [AP]

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