Name to be scrubbed from high-rise building

[struggle4progress]

Ashifa Kassam in Toronto
Tuesday 27 June 2017 18.49 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 27 June 2017 19.44 EDT

The Trump name is set to be scrubbed from the Toronto skyline after the new owner of a high-rise hotel and condo development reportedly paid millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s company to break off a branding contract.

US firm JCF Capital said on Tuesday that it had reached a deal with Trump Hotels to buy out its management contracts. While the Toronto hotel, which opened in 2012, was not owned by Trump, contracts inked with the building’s developer, Talon International Development, saw the project license the Trump brand and managed by a Trump-owned company.

The sum involved in the deal was not disclosed. But a source told Bloomberg News that the amount paid by the US firm was at least US$6m and that the Trump name may be taken off the building as early as August ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/27/trump-name-scrubbed-toronto-canada-hotel

[BigmanPigman]

1. Trump Tower residents are willing to foot the bill in New York

to do the same since property values are plummeting.

[struggle4progress]

2. Deal left trail of angry investors and a struggling hotel

RUSS CHOMAJUN. 27, 2017 4:52 PM

... the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto has become yet another symbol of the flaws of the Trump business empire: construction setbacks, strange financing, angry investors, and empty hotel rooms.

Trump first made his move into Canada at the height of his Apprentice deal-making fame, inking an agreement to attach his name—and reputation—to a shiny new Toronto tower, in which he had no ownership interest. When the building opened five years ago, Trump kicked off the project with a bit of promotion that looks a lot like the PR strategy he would employ as a candidate and as president: a tweet with a dramatic video of his plane landing and a black motorcade of SUVs rolling into the hotel’s entrance, where an adoring crowd waited ...

The Toronto tower he leased his name to never lived up to the hype. On Tuesday morning, the Trump Organization and the building’s current owner announced that the president’s name will be removed from the hotel.

Trump spent years promoting the property as a total success and an extension of his brand. His original partners in the project were two Russian-Canadian businessmen, neither of whom had any experience with building a skyscraper. As the building went up, construction delays and other problems — including pieces of the building falling off — set the project back ...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/heres-what-trumps-latest-failure-tells-us-about-his-business-empire/