JLL backs out of selling Trump’s DC hotel

Brokerage said it’s no longer involved after unrest at Capitol Building

JLL CEO Christian Ulbrich, Trump International Hotel in Washington DC and Donald Trump (Getty; Trump Hotels)
JLL CEO Christian Ulbrich, Trump International Hotel in Washington DC and Donald Trump (Getty; Trump Hotels)

JLL has dropped its involvement with the effort to sell President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel.

The real estate brokerage is ‘“not going to be involved in selling that hotel,” a JLL spokesperson told Washington Post reporter Jonathan O’Connell, who tweeted the news Friday morning.

A JLL spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Real Deal.

The Trump Organization had tapped JLL, headed by CEO Christian Ulbrich, to market the ground lease on the 263-key Trump International Hotel at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, which reports said could fetch around $500 million.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

The marketing process, however, was put on hold in November after bids came in lower than expected.

The president’s firm signed a 60-year lease with the federal government for the site, a former space for the U.S. Post Office, in 2013 — a deal that came under scrutiny for potential conflicts of interest when Trump became president.

It wasn’t immediately clear when JLL’s involvement with the hotel came to an end, or whether it was the result of Wednesday’s violent unrest at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Members of the real estate industry, some of whom supported Trump, denounced the events that happened in Washington, D.C., and the president’s actions inciting them.