A real estate investor and developer plans to make a bid on Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Citing scrutiny that President Trump might be profiting off of his office, the Trump Organization announced in October that it planned to sell the luxury hotel, located blocks from White House.
Brian Friedman, whose company owns the Line Hotel in Adams Morgan and Kimpton Glover Park, told the Washington Post he recently toured the hotel and said the building was in “amazing” condition.
Trump spent about $210 million to renovate the Old Post Office building that opened as a hotel in 2016.
Friedman noted, however, the 263-room property was underperforming. The hotel was 57% occupied in 2019, according to marketing materials released by a real estate firm hired by Trump’s company.
“I think he has to sell before he gets out of office, because it’s not going to get better — it’s going to get worse,” he said.
The Trump Organization said it was seeking as much as $500 million for the property, which Friedman said was not realistic.
“There’s never been a hotel that’s sold even close to that price per [room] in D.C., and the ones that have sold for the highest prices had no ground lease,” Friedman said. “You would never get $500 million for a ground lease.”
Trump signed a 60-year lease with the federal government before he became president for a base rent of $3 million per year.
The Trump Organization’s ownership of the hotel has generated ethics questions and numerous lawsuits regarding whether the president, who still has a financial interest in the company, is running afoul of the U.S. Constitution.
Democrats, state attorneys general, and government watchdog groups argued the president is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause because the hotel has hosted foreign governments. The emoluments clause prohibits presidents from accepting gifts or money from foreign governments without congressional approval.
At least one of the lawsuits would be nullified if Trump sold his interest in the hotel.
