Plans for Australia’s first Trump Tower have been scrapped, with the developer citing the Iran war and the Trump Organization blaming financial defaults.
Plans for Australia’s first Trump-branded tower have collapsed, with the developer behind the proposed Gold Coast project saying the Iran war had made the Trump name too politically damaging in Australia.
The split ends, at least for now, a high-profile push to bring the Trump Organization’s hotel and residential brand to Queensland only three months after the deal was announced. The proposed 91-storey luxury hotel and apartment tower had been promoted as a A$1.5 billion project, about $1.1 billion, and was billed as a future contender for Australia’s tallest building.
David Young, chief executive of Altus Property Group, said the company would proceed without the Trump affiliation and seek other luxury brand options. “Let’s just say that with the Iran war and everything else, the Trump brand was increasingly toxic in Australia,” Young said in a statement cited by the BBC and CBS News.
The Trump Organization disputed that explanation and said Altus failed to meet obligations tied to the agreement. Kimberly Benza, the company’s director of executive operations, said the organization had been “very excited” about the project but that negotiations had been marked by “empty promise, after empty promise.”
“Mr Young’s attempt to blame certain world events for our termination of the agreement is merely a ploy to distract from his own defaults and failures,” Benza said.
Altus denied that it had failed to meet its obligations. Young said the project remained active, just without the Trump name. In a LinkedIn post cited by CBS News, he described the decision as “pure business” and said there was “no acrimony” between himself and the Trump family.
The tower had been planned for Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast and was described as a 335-metre building with 285 hotel rooms, 272 luxury residential apartments, shops, restaurants and a private beach club. Construction had been expected to begin in August, according to the BBC.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the local council had not received a development application for the site, describing the matter as an agreement between two private parties. Tate said the breakdown appeared to be about profit margins, with neither side satisfied with the financial terms.
The proposal had already drawn public resistance. A petition opposing the development attracted well over 100,000 signatures, according to the source reports, while a much smaller petition supported the deal.
Eric Trump announced the project in February as the Trump Organization’s first official move into Australia. Details of the project have since been removed from the Trump Organization’s website, and the company said it still hopes to pursue a Trump-branded property in Australia in the future.
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