NEW YORK
Donald J. Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, are expected to finalize a lease for the Old Post Office Pavilion with the General Services Administration in the coming months, but that may be the simplest step in developing a glitzy hotel.
D.C. ‘ready for some Trump luxury’
VIDEO | Ivanka Trump talks about what she's planning for D.C. and shows us some N.Y. Trump properties.
Donald Trump follows a familiar blueprint in plans for Old Post Office
The Trumps insist that that the hotel will top the Hay-Adams, the Jefferson and the Four Seasons.
Trump as a brand
The real estate mogul has made more of a name for himself by putting his moniker on a variety of properties and products.
They then have to carry out their plan to make the property what they want it to be: the envy of Washington, a deluxe rest stop worthy of top room rates.
Working with Washington architect Arthur Cotton Moore, the Trumps plan a 261-room hotel with a spa, three restaurants, a lounge and a museum dedicated to the history of the building and the Bells of Congress that hang in its clock tower. Along with private equity giant Colony Capital, the Trumps have committed to spending $200 million renovating the building and paying the government a rent of $3 million a year.
Ivanka Trump said that like the Trump Organization’s eight other hotels, the Trump International Hotel Washington D.C. will attempt to fit the composition and style of the city where it is located. It could open in early 2016.
“You look at Trump Chicago — it’s contemporary, it’s elegant, it’s sleek, it’s got soaring height, 92 stories, which fits perfectly with the Chicago skyline,” she said of Trump International Hotel and Tower, the condo-hotel completed in 2009. The 64-story Trump hotel in Las Vegas, she said, is “over the top, extravagant.”
The hotel will emphasize the building’s place in Washington’s history, she said. Stately, classic and — unlike anything bearing the Trump name in Las Vegas or Atlantic City — traditional. “We have been so sensitive to the fact that this building is tremendously important, and we are taking great pains to preserve all historic elements,” she said.
Ivanka and her father insist that that the hotel will top other famed hotels, including the Hay-Adams, the Jefferson and the Four Seasons. “Everybody in Washington will be proud of the end result,” Donald Trump said.
It’s a bold statement given the reality of the luxury hotel market in Washington and the building’s location on a gray strip of Pennsylvania Avenue that has resisted redevelopment over the past 30 years.
The financial crisis was unkind to developers performing expensive rehabs of luxury hotels in Washington, forcing owners of some of the city’s most famous destinations to struggle with their debt obligations.
Owners of three marquee names — the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, the Watergate and the St. Regis Washington — found themselves underwater on mortgages, with the last two changing hands after their owners defaulted on payments. Even a loan backing the Ritz-Carlton hotels in the West End and Georgetown landed on a watch list.
After the recession ended, however, business has been on the comeback. Luxury hotel room occupancy in Washington was 76.2 percent through June of this year, according to data from Smith Travel Research, up from 72.5 percent in the first half of 2008. Revenue per available room (a key performance metric used by the industy) has had a rockier ride, but was at $208.42 for the first half of 2012, up from $205.08 for the same period in 2011 and $190.54 for 2010.
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