Donald Trump’s holding company Trump Organization will sell the lease of its luxury hotel in Washington for $ 375 million to CGI Merchant Group, which plans to rename the establishment now named Trump International Hotel, several American media reported on Sunday. According to Wall Street Journal, CGI Merchant Group has entered into another agreement with the Hilton hotel group, which will be managed through its subsidiary Waldorf Astoria, which will give the hotel its name.
A spokesperson for CGI Merchant Group declined to comment. When contacted, the Trump Organization did not follow up immediately, nor did the Hilton group. Located just a few hundred meters from the White House, and a little further from the Capitol, the building in which the hotel is housed does not belong to the Trump Organization.
$ 200 million invested in renovations
It is owned by the US government, which has been leasing it since 2013 to the former head of state’s real estate group, for a 60-year lease, with a clause providing for the possibility of an extension of another 40 years. The Trump Organization will have invested some $ 200 million in the renovation of this listed building, which was built at the end of the 19th century to house the main post office of the federal capital. According to a report by the House of Representatives Supervisory Committee, the Trump Old Post Office LLC, a special purpose company created to manage the hotel, recorded more than $ 71 million in losses between the hotel’s inauguration, in 2016, and end of August 2020.
She has never been a beneficiary. During Donald Trump’s presidential term, the establishment, known for its gigantic atrium and its neo-Romanesque tower, had become a meeting place for elected Republicans, donors and lobbyists. Several elected officials and personalities were moved, at the time, by the fact that the hotel, which has 263 rooms, was able to accommodate foreign dignitaries visiting Washington. They argued the possibility of a conflict of interest for Donald Trump, both President of the United States and still a shareholder of the Trump Organization, in which he had retained his shares. An investigation by the Supervisory Commission is still ongoing.
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