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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Waldorf Salad Astoria Cocktail Hotel, DC

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Waldorf Salad Astoria Cocktail Hotel, DC

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(Buyer is CGI Merchant Group, located in Miami. Legit, or nah?)

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39Comments

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    From the Washingtonian link in #4:

    Acquired from GSA in 2012, the Old Post Office building was a hard-won pet project of Ivanka Trump’s, who was able to beat out competitors like Marriott and Hilton with what some say was an overgenerous bid of $3 million a year for the ground lease and and a promise to invest $200 million in the building’s renovation — a promise that forced Trump to borrow $170 million from Deutsche Bank that comes due in 2024. The 60-year lease has three 10-year options, giving the Trumps control of the property until 2103. At the time of the sale, Ivanka told GSA officials she believed her newborn daughter, Arabella Rose, would one day manage the property and handle re-leasing negotiations.

    But plans for legacy can change when your father takes the seat as the leader of the free world, not only subjecting his DC property to a slew of emoluments suits by refusing to divest, but creating a polarized clientele in a deeply Blue city. Despite Eric Trump’s claims that the family put the hotel on the market because “people [were] objecting to [them] making so much money,” the behemoth property has been a money pit, generating just roughly $40 million a year in revenue (not profit) per year even before the pandemic.

    The Journal scoop comes just four days after a Senate report revealed that the hotel had lost over $70 million during Trump’s presidency, despite taking in millions in payments from foreign governments. (The Trump Organization said the allegations were “irresponsible and unequivocally false.”) Add in the fact that the Trump company has roughly $300 million in mostly personally guaranteed loans coming due in the next few years, and the family’s original astronomical asking price of $500 million becomes a bit more understandable.

    Understandable does not equate to feasible, though, especially given that in the first attempt to offload the property investors shared Trump was unlikely to relinquish management rights (or allow the removal of the Trump name from the side of the building) for offers south of $500 mill — a valuation that would exceed that of New York’s Waldorf Astoria by 90 percent. The company claims they rejected bids north of $350 million, but CNBC reports none of the bids were close to the asking price, with many south of $250 mill.

    It would be nice if the GSA somehow turned it into a reverse-ish auction – “Sorry, we cannot allow TFG/Ivanka to accept that bid. We’ll re-open the bidding – how about $200M?? Remember, there’s talk about tearing down the J Edgar Hoover FBI building across the street and turning that lot into a hotel, also too…”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @zhena gogolia:

    It’s a beautiful building. I’m glad it will be decontaminated. 

    Narrator: That’s impossible.  They bought Kremlin-contaminated shit for 400 million.

  9. 9.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken: Does the Soviet shitpile mobster conman even own the hotel, or did he convince some dumb schmuck to let him slap his fat, orange, fascist name on it?

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: Cute — I mean the story by Desmond Warzel. I particularly liked the guy who kept complaining that the posts weren’t appropriate to the forum. Must have predated open threads.  Plus, you’ll notice that the highly-advanced citizenry of the 22nd century don’t use threaded comments.

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott:

    a promise that forced Trump to borrow $170 million from Deutsche Bank that comes due in 2024. ….

    Add in the fact that the Trump company has roughly $300 million in mostly personally guaranteed loans coming due in the next few years,

    hmmmm……..

  14. 14.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    All Trump properties should be burned to the ground.

    A-fucking-men!  Would be difficult for many surrounding buildings but let’s include Putin’s bitch’s shitstain here in Chicago.   I’m all for demolition.

  18. 18.

    Gammyjill

    @mrmoshpotato: I’m from Chicago, too, and I loathe and despise Trump as much as everyone else around here. But I think his building in Chicago is magnificent. Designed by British architect Adrian Smith, it is set perfectly on its odd shaped land and blends in beautifully with its neighbors.

    Of course, I’ve never been inside the building because of those deplorable 5 letters plastered on the front. I won’t go in the building until those letters are taken down.

  20. 20.

    Cermet

    @mrmoshpotato: The GSA “owns” the hotel/property but the rump owns the lease. But did he sell the lease for more than be paid? That is my question. Those numbers I can’t find but experts feel the hotel is, at best, worth $275 million (and that requires a rather inflated value per room.) Considering the rump lost money (after accounting for interest) the price paid is certainly ridiculously too high. Like a $100 million too high. So certainly they expect to reap rewards once the rump is installed in the white house.

  22. 22.

    Cermet

    From all I have found is rump agreed to pay $3 million a year in rent, and invest $200 million in improvements; as such, he didn’t really pay anything for the lease in the sense of buying the lease. So, apparently, he pockets well over a $150 million even if he really spent $200 million in improvements (which I am certain he never came close to that amount.) This is classic ripoff of the amerikan tax payer or typical wealthy money making – sick even on a superficial bases.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    The Atlanta Journal Constitution has an excellent podcast on the Ahmaud Arbery murder case. It’s disturbing because so much of it is original souces- the audio of the aftermath where the (now) defendants were interviewed at the scene, audio of the initial hearing and some motion hearings , but there also good explanations of Georgia law as a background. It’s tough to listen to.
    The real callousness – the utter lack of concern or interest in the man dying (he was still alive at this point) in the road at the scene in the immediate aftermath struck me, and not just the callousness of the shooter and the shooters accomplices, but also police. It’s appalling.

  24. 24.

    sab

    @Kay: Reminds me of Tamir Rice. Little kid is shot and the two policemen lock his hysterical sister in the squad car while they debate what to do. Meanwhile a twelve year old child bleeds out.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @sab:

    Ugh, the female officer at the scene.
    It’s REAL buddy buddy with the shooters

    If you didn’t know better you would think it’s a fender bender, a minor car accident, the way they act.

  29. 29.

    CaseyL

    @Tony Gerace: ​
     

    We’re disaggregating into very different, separate kinds of societies. We’re going back to the 19th Century, particularly in rural areas. It’s funny in a way that telecommunications (from radio to social media) which began to knit us together, is now the tool being used to rip us apart.

  33. 33.

    sab

    I live in a city. I married a Catholic parochial school kid who has many cop friends.

    We have a seriously severe problem with cops in America. I do not believe all of them are monsters, but I do believe it is about 40 percent horrible 60 percent okay.  I have no stats to back up my guess.

    But I believe the majority are trying to do their job, and a huge minority are not. That is just my take

  35. 35.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SiubhanDuinne: There was talk of Florence Price the other day. Last night my dear wife and I went to a concert by the RI Philharmonic, which had as its opening piece the orchestral version of her Dances in the Canebreaks. I’ve not yet heard the original piano version, so I don’t know how much was added in the orchestration (by William Grant Still) but it was a very enjoyable piece, which, at least in its first movement, made me think of Charles Ives. Here is what the program notes said:

    Florence Price composed Dances in the Canebrakes in its original piano version in 1953, the year of her death (from a stroke). Thus, part of the work’s significance is that it was one of her last compositions. Subsequently, a more successful Black composer, William Grant Still, orchestrated the three movements of the little suite. The connection between Price and Still is unclear.

    The easily heard underlying rhythms of the three “dances” were derived from stage and ballroom dances from the time of Scott Joplin (c. 1900) and earlier. The first movement, titled Nimble Feet, is a “rag.” We hear this intertwined with fragments of a cheery melody.

    A “slow drag,” the dominant rhythm of the second movement, supports a dreamy melody, which is passed around various sections of the orchestra. The central musical segment is more assertive, before consolidating both moods in a final segment of music.

    The word “cane” in the last movement’s title, Silk Hat and Walking Cane, may be a play on words. The predominant rhythm here is the “cakewalk,” a ballroom dance of the late 19th century. Again in three sections, the music cleverly combines the feeling of theatrical dance with fashionable ballroom dancing.

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic: Thanks so much. As I may have mentioned in that thread, I’ve heard the Dances several times, but only in recordings/on the radio. I envy your experience hearing them in person — there must have been great energy in a live performance.

  37. 37.

    Patricia Kayden

    Media has a lot to say about MVP Kamala Harris, when the last VP literally aided and abetted internal attacks on our democracy for 4 years.— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) November 14, 2021

  38. 38.

    gbear

    I hope that removing the taint of Trump from this building will also sweeten the air for the building’s matchimg little sister on Rice Park in St. Paul. They’re both beautiful buildings.

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