developing

Trump’s Condo-Hotel Gambit Works; City Approves Soho Tower

Trump Soho

Image: TrumpSoho.com


That sound you just heard is the last huff of Soho’s industrial grit. With unceremonious filings last night, the city cleared the Trump Organization to build a 41-story tower on one of Soho’s last scraps of industrial land. The Trump Soho project calls itself a “condo-hotel,” a taxonomy that lets its developer build what some might call a residential tower in a manufacturing zone without special permits. The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation calls it a precedent for sneaking other condos into other manufacturing zones around town, distorting property values and sundering urban character. For months, GVSHP has urged city agencies to drag the project through a public zoning review to air its potential neighborliness. But on April 26, the development team promised to let shareholders use the units for a maximum of 120 days a year (and for only 29 of every 36 days). Now, GVSHP chief Andrew Berman tells us: “This is a case of the city not enforcing its own laws, and that makes them vulnerable to a lawsuit.” Does that mean he’s threatening one? —Alec Appelbaum

Trump’s Condo-Hotel Gambit Works; City Approves Soho Tower