Dateline: Trump Tower
By Karl Klockars in News on Nov 12, 2008 9:15PM
It's always a busy day in the world of Donald Trump, but it's a little bit busier around our very own Trump Tower as of late. First, Crain's Chicago has scoured the real-estate listings to find that the Editor-In-Chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, Michael Cooke, flipped his condo for a tidy profit recently. Hey, good for him - at least the newspaper industry is on a paying basis for somebody.* Maybe he can get a show on A&E now.
But more worrisome in this beshitted economy are Trump's financial sheets regarding the building itself - Crain's New York reports that he's sued his lenders for more time to pay off the loans he took out to construct the Tower. He's in the hole to the tune of about $650 Million, and there are still plenty of condos and hotel units up for grabs in the tower that are not exactly selling like hotcakes.
Trump has sued for another 6 month extension on his loan, on top of the six months he's already been allowed because of the credit crunch and the housing crisis. Adding insult to injury, while tenants like Cooke are making bank reselling their "friends-and-family" condos for around $800k a piece, Trump is locked into selling other less-desirable units for far more. We're no economists, but that doesn't seem like a very good deal.
And yet, it's not all dark skies in the soul of Donald Trump - he's paying it forward as he puts up J-Hud and her family at his hotel for free. The Sun-Times reports that People Magazine has reported that E! Online brings us news that Hudson has been calling the hotel home since October 24th, just a day after the triple murder of her mother, sister and nephew. While the cynical among us might opine that Trump is only providing the free digs for the publicity, we'll appeal to our better nature and simply say Good for the Don.
*In unrelated news, Chicagoist EIC Marcus Gilmer reported record profits from selling stuff "reappropriated" from ex-girlfriends on craigslist.