Deadline is set for bids on Trump’s DC hotel

Potential buyers have until January 23 to bid on the Trump Organization’s controversial Washington, D.C. hotel.

The firm marketing the Trump Washington hotel, JLL, is already seeing “robust activity,” the Wall Street Journal reported, and the Trump Organization hopes it can fetch $500 million for the ground lease. That price would represent $2 million per key, which would constitute a record in the nation’s capital.

Trump does not actually own the hotel, but leases the former Post Office from the federal government. In October, Eric Trump said that scrutiny of the hotel’s profits led the family to consider its sale.

In November, the Washington Post reported that the hotel experienced a 57 percent occupancy rate — compared to 75 percent among other high-end hotels.

A 2019 investigation by The Real Deal found that the Trump Hotel in Chicago has struggled to find retail tenants, with a large portion languishing on the market for a decade.

Sources familiar with the matter told the Journal that foreign private-equity firms and wealthy families are expected to bid, as well as major hotel brands like Hilton Worldwide Holdings and Marriott International.

The Trump Organization’s contract with the federal government – administered by the General Services Administration, the agency that oversees the federal government’s real estate holdings – is the subject of an ongoing investigation from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The hotel lease prohibits any elected member of the federal government from profiting from the hotel arrangement.

[WSJ] — Georgia Kromrei