Reply With QuoteSo it's not a timeshare?
Are you saying its just a small condo. A studio maybe?
Stern, I do not think that this feature of TTC is new in the city. It is a very old housing type, most popular in the 20's and 30's. In my neighbourhood, there a several huge buildings that are now apartment buildings, but were originally designed as apartment hotels. They have very small kitchens, ornate lobbies, and the units are small.
TLOZ, I think Fabb's avatar is Miss Milla Jovovich- fresh outta Resident Evil?
So it's not a timeshare?
Are you saying its just a small condo. A studio maybe?
Yes. That would be the term that non-real estate people, like me, would use to describe it. But some of them will have seperate sleeping areas and the like. But they are not timeshares, unless three people get together and buy one and share it through the year.Originally Posted by Stern
But legally speaking, there will be no difference between them and the codos except for the level and availibility of services. Most condos are not furnished, these probably will be. Most condos do not have room service and concierge. Most condos do not have daily maid service and a support staff. These probably will.
Indeed. I was searching Google for that picture. Fabb's avatar is a cropped version of a more revealing pic.
Well, you know, censorship again.
High Drama Over Chicago High-Rise
Deborah Smith
National Real Estate Investor, Jan 1, 2004
The planned Trump International Hotel and Tower along the Chicago River faces a complicated set of issues to be sure: a lack of project financing, a weak office market and an ever-widening scandal surrounding the Trump Organization's joint venture partner. All three obstacles have combined to raise questions about the viability of the planned mixed-use development. Yet even as the drama over the hotel and tower grows, the buying frenzy for the upscale condos continues.
The Trump Organization and Hollinger International — owner of the Chicago Sun-Times — are 50-50 partners in a $700 million development that combines 326 luxury condos, 174 hotel rooms and 350,000 sq. ft. of office space on the site of the newspaper's riverfront headquarters at 401 N. Wabash, on the north side of the Chicago River. The project will include a restaurant and retail component, health club and spa, as well as a riverfront park. The development is scheduled for delivery in 2007. The total amount invested in the project so far by both partners is almost $10 million, according to Charles Reiss, senior vice president at the Trump Organization.
But internal shake-ups at Hollinger International have raised red flags. Hollinger CEO Conrad Black and COO F. David Radler resigned amid allegations of financial malfeasance. Hollinger also is exploring a sale of its assets, including the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper.
Though both partners say the joint venture is on, there are lingering doubts, says one Chicago real estate veteran. “If the assets of Hollinger are for sale, it wouldn't surprise me if there was an ‘out clause’ in case the new buyer wasn't intrigued with the deal with Trump,” says John Goodman, executive vice president in the Chicago office of Studley, a national tenant representation firm.
Fueling the uncertainty is the fact that the developers haven't lined up financing for the project, though Reiss is confident that financing will be in place this spring. “Banks are coming to us,” he states boldly. Indeed, such widespread interest in the development could very well give the project an edge, according to at least one seasoned mortgage banker. “If they have legitimate pre-sales in excess of 50%, the project could be financed,” explains Steve Skok of Cohen Financial. “In addition, the sale of the Sun-Times may enhance liquidity, which would give construction lenders additional comfort.”
Still another concern is the weak office market. According to Studley, the fourth-quarter availability rate for Class-A space in the CBD registered 18.3%, including sublease space. Though negotiations with an anchor tenant are under way, no leases have been signed, according to Howard F. Meyer, senior vice president of U.S. Equities, which is handling the commercial leasing. He expects to announce a tenant in the first quarter of 2004. Though Meyer declined further comment, industry insiders predict a large law firm will take the space. The Sun-Times is not expected to be one of the tenants, says an industry source.
Still, the myriad concerns surrounding the project haven't put a damper on condo sales. More than 70% of the 326 luxury residences planned for the 90-story mixed-use tower have sold since September, says Trump's leasing director Tere Proctor. The condos start at roughly $500,000 for a one-bedroom. Four out of five of the penthouses — which cost up to $11 million — have already been snapped up. According to Proctor, who has worked in real estate for 25 years, it would take comparable luxury buildings at least a year to achieve this sales level.
More significant is the market share the proposed Trump tower has achieved. Trump has garnered 20% of the downtown market for new condominium construction in the third quarter of 2003, according to Gail Lissner of the Chicago-based Appraisal Research Counselors, a group that tracks residential real estate sales. “We've seen nothing like this since 1999 and 2000, she says. “It's a buying frenzy.”
© 2004, Primedia Business Magazines and Media
ChicagoBusiness.com
Trump cuts office space in tower
Residential portion of planned high-rise selling well
By Alby Gallun
January 22, 2004
Amid a lousy downtown office market, Donald J. Trump apparently has scrapped plans to include about 350,000 square feet of office space in his proposed $650-million trophy tower along the Chicago River.
The high-rise on the site of the Chicago Sun-Times building will remain 90 stories tall, but Trump’s revised plan calls for an extra 200 condominium and hotel units, which will substitute for the lost office space, says a spokesman for the city Department of Planning and Development. The department approved the change on Jan. 5.
The Trump Organization’s recent proposal included 500 units: 326 condos and 174 “hotel-condo” units—hotel suites sold to individual owners like condominiums. Under the new plan, the New York-based developer plans to build as many as 700 units—500 condos and 200 hotel suites—according to the planning department spokesman.
Trump executives did not return phone calls. A lawyer representing the project declined to comment.
The move makes sense, considering how well the condo and hotel units have sold and how much trouble Trump has had luring office tenants to the 2.4 million-square-foot project. Office tenants have plenty of options these days, thanks to an 18.5% downtown vacancy rate, according to Chicago-based U.S. Equities Realty.
Architecture firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, which designed the Trump building, had considered moving there, and Trump representatives also had talked to law firm Jenner & Block LLC, a logical target considering the firm is right next door in the IBM Building. Talks with another law firm, McGuire Woods LLP, broke off in late November.
Trump had already shrunk the project’s office space significantly, dropping it to 650,000 square feet from 1 million square feet after the September 2001, terrorist attacks. The developer reduced the office portion further last year, ultimately settling on about 350,000 square feet.
Popular pads
The condo and hotel part has fared better. Trump, which started marketing the units in September, announced in early December that it had contracts for more than 300 units, or about 60% of the total. That’s a significant accomplishment in such a short time, especially considering the soft condo market.
The condo units range from $512,000 to $11 million, while the hotel units range from $425,000 to more than $1 million.
Named the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the project is a joint venture between the Trump Organization and Hollinger International Inc., the Sun-Times’ Chicago-based parent. Trump executives have said the project will move forward despite the scandals that have embroiled Hollinger and recent plans to sell a controlling stake in the company.
It's unclear how many condo and hotel units in the revised project Trump will have to sell to obtain financing and start construction. Trump executives have said they want to break ground on the tower this summer.
Re: The Trump Tower Chicago
Another piece of shit from SOM.
"The Donald" was singing the tower's praises on the season finale of The Apprentice.
Re: The Trump Tower Chicago
um... i'm no fan of SOM, but what's actually so bad about this building?Another piece of shit from SOM.
Last edited by Kris; October 5th, 2009 at 04:39 AM.
Chicago you better love this one b/c uselly Donlad Trump Buildings are boxy
so don't hate
Re: The Trump Tower Chicago
It's been refined since I made that remark. Still banal, but not as regrettable.um... i'm no fan of SOM, but what's actually so bad about this building?Another piece of shit from SOM.
Last edited by Kris; October 5th, 2009 at 04:40 AM.
Re: The Trump Tower Chicago
hmm... it's not outstanding - not for a building of its size, at least - but i don't see it as banal. even so, there's something to be said for banality in context, and it really does work in the above rendering, and will likely attract similar development nearby.It's been refined since I made that remark. Still banal, but not as regrettable.um... i'm no fan of SOM, but what's actually so bad about this building?Another piece of shit from SOM.
btw, i was responding more to finnman69's "piece of shit" statement... i think we ought to be grateful for any supertall built in the current economic climate, provided it isn't as ugly as the freedom tower.
Last edited by Kris; October 5th, 2009 at 04:41 AM.
April 17, 2004
Chicago May Give 'Apprentice' Lesson in Reality
By MONICA DAVEY
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's 90-story Trump tower would replace the Chicago Sun-Times building on Wabash Avenue along the Chicago River.
CHICAGO, April 16 — Some experts in the real estate industry here have long wondered whether Donald J. Trump's plans for a glassy, high-end 90-story hotel and condominium tower along the banks of the Chicago River were reality or just some New Yorker's fantasy of leaving his mark on this town.
It seemed fitting, then, that the next stage of this dream of Mr. Trump's found its project manager on the finale of a reality television show.
Mr. Trump named Bill Rancic, who won NBC's "The Apprentice" on Thursday night and had earlier made a living selling cigars on the Web, as "president" of this $700 million project, which still needs financing, final signoffs from City Hall, and demolition of the Chicago Sun-Times building, which sits on the site of the tower-to-be.
"This is a large and sophisticated project, and the job is like being the conductor of an orchestra," Bruce R. Cohen, the chief executive of Cohen Financial Capital Management in Chicago, observed. "I don't know how somebody can conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra if they've never gone to a concert before, and if they've never played any of the instruments."
On Friday, Mr. Trump said he was still working out precisely what duties Mr. Rancic, 32, would hold as president of the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the gleaming project that Mr. Trump says will become the fourth tallest building in Chicago when it is finished in 2007.
"It will be an important job," Mr. Trump said. "He will be a project manager."
Why entrust such an important-sounding role on a complicated construction project to someone of Mr. Rancic's experience?
For one thing, Mr. Trump said, Mr. Rancic will be "working with a team of highly trained professionals who have done nothing but build buildings their whole lives — including me." And for another, he said, there was simple business to consider (as any successful apprentice would surely know): how better to show the world where they can buy sky-high condominiums in Chicago's downtown than on a national television broadcast with sky-high ratings?
"I felt that this was a great opportunity to promote a great project," Mr. Trump said.
This, Mr. Trump's first foray into Chicago, began bumpily.
He and his partner in the project, Hollinger International Inc., which owns The Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers, announced three years ago that they planned to build a 150-story tower on the site of the Sun-Times, a squat and otherwise unimpressive boxlike building on Wabash Avenue along the architecturally rich Chicago River in the heart of downtown.
Few pretended they would miss the Sun-Times building (all seven stories of it), but Mr. Trump's dreams of building into the sky — with the tallest building in the world and, more disturbing to some here, the tallest in Chicago — did not sit well. This is a city that prides itself on its skyline and some here feared that Mr. Trump might leave a blemish.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, the desire for tall buildings vanished and Mr. Trump's plan shrank. Then, early drawings drew scoffs. Blair Kamin, the architecture critic for The Chicago Tribune, compared one version to a "bloated blob of a skyscraper" and a "skyline dud."
Eventually, Mr. Trump's people drew up a new plan, which won more praise from the architectural world, but many doubts from other developers and those who finance buildings here, because of its high prices.
The project has yet to receive financing, and some here wonder whether it will. Hollinger International has been fending off troubles in recent months: Conrad M. Black, the former chief executive, quit last November after directors questioned millions in payments to him. And Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has dealt with a troubled gambling empire, with his casino holdings stuck in almost $2 billion in bond debt.
"There is a lot of healthy skepticism about it, I would say," said Anthony R. Licata, the managing partner of Shefsky & Froelich, a law firm here that often deals with real estate. "That said, Trump has made a career of proving people wrong. I would never bet against that guy."
On Friday, Molly Morse, a spokeswoman for Hollinger International, said that she had no comment on whether the company's current troubles might affect the Chicago project, of which Hollinger would have half ownership, she said.
But Mr. Trump said that the doubters, if there were any, were wasting their time. He said he was discussing the financing with five major institutions, "all of which are dying to do the job." And he said that the project had the City Hall approvals it needed.
City Hall officials said that the tower had received the most crucial zoning and planning approvals, but that the plan would also require a final administrative signoff from the city staff once the most detailed drawings were submitted and Mr. Trump applied for demolition and building permits.
"This thing is happening," Mr. Trump said.
And even some early doubters said they could not ignore the success Mr. Trump has had, already, at persuading buyers to sign contracts for the building and put down earnest money. Though the units in the tower are selling at prices far beyond Chicago's usual levels (the condominiums range from $579,000 to $15 million) and though they are at least three years away, many units are under contract.
Buyers have signed contracts on 325 of the building's planned 461 residential units, and on 128 of the building's 200 hotel units (which buyers can rent out as hotel rooms), said Tere Proctor, the director of sales in Chicago.
"It was probably better received than what was expected by many of us," James M. Kinney, president of Rubloff Residential Properties, said of those numbers. "I would anticipate it should be coming out of the ground. Still, a lot of things can happen between here and there. The young man has quite a project for himself."
In the tower's sales office on the seventh floor of the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday, phones rang incessantly, e-mail messages popped in, and a few buyers stopped by. The television show had helped. "The phone lines are exploding," said Ms. Proctor.
So, it seemed, real business had been dropped into the already odd mix of real life and TV land.
Mr. Rancic, meanwhile, said he felt prepared for his one-year apprenticeship, which will earn him $250,000, though he had yet to see the sales office or meet the local staff. Most likely, the most visible event that will happen this year is the demolition of the Sun-Times building, which is scheduled to begin this fall and will take months. (The Sun-Times expects to move to another building downtown.)
"I think I'm going to need some guidance," Mr. Rancic said. "But I think Mr. Trump has the right people in place. They'll take me under their wing."
"I've been working for this my whole life," he said, in a telephone interview squeezed in between flying from his TV victory in New York and a visit to "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" in Los Angeles.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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