TRUMP ME!
Welcome to a special edition of Luxe Life dedicated to big-bucks billionaires and a platinum pop prince as we discover how to make your net worth grow by $2.5 billion in less than a day just by saying you’d like to buy a building or two! Plus, how to earn over $5-million for showing up at a birthday party! It’s a fabulous Fort Knox break-the-bank inside look at how the rich get even richer!
Our candid one-on-one chat with megabucks builder turned TV star and best-selling author, Donald Trump. He came to Vegas for the topping-off ceremony of his first $600-million, 64-story 1,282 condo-hotel tower at Trump International Hotel & Towers just off the Strip opposite Fashion Show Mall. Now, the project’s interior will be finished so owners can move in after final completion early next year.
Construction began in November 2005 with some 800 construction workers on a 24-hour a day schedule building one floor every six days since March 2006.
“We’ve sold $1.3 billion worth of apartments and the building is three months ahead of schedule and slightly under budget, so I’m a very happy man” he said. “And I’m only just beginning with Vegas. I’m already negotiating on another big part of the community.” The Donald explained that his signature 24-carat gold-tinted glass rising up 645 feet makes it the tallest residential building in Nevada.
“It’s been an amazing investment,” he continued. “I had so much fun with Tower One that last month we announced sales for a 2nd Tower and we’ve already sold over 500 units for that. With the new people who own the Plaza Hotel building in Manhattan, that I once owned, now building a five billion dollar Plaza Hotel here behind me I have to say that I’m right in the middle of the hottest corner of the world. The buyers of my apartments really love that because it just adds to the opulent Trump lifestyle they imagined.”
I’ve known Donald as a good buddy since even before his first marriage to former Czech ski-champion Ivana. I reminded him that I’d once described him as single-handedly re-carving the Manhattan skyline with all his buildings and asked if he was planning to do the same in Vegas. He chuckled saying: “This first building of mine has already had a huge impact on the Vegas skyline and driving down the Strip, as you know you have been my friend for years, you see it right smack in the middle. We are doing another one and it is the tallest building in Las Vegas. I am building all over the world, in 30 cities, and yet I wish I’d come here sooner, but nothing has been hotter than New York in the past and you can only do so much. Manhattan has seen staggering real-estate increases. What was once $1-million is now as high as $20-million in some cases! I did wait but coming here three years ago proved my timing was right again, and this spectacular building has proved a huge success.
“I have been the biggest developer in New York, but Vegas is a special place and I have special friends here so there is a lot more to come. That I promise! Vegas is a great city, with great people. Steve Wynn and MGM chief Terri Lanni have done amazing jobs. We have great friendships and I saw Steve while I stayed at his property. Maybe we could do a casino together in a joint venture? Kirk Kerkorian is an incredible guy. So many amazing minds and so many fantastic people. I am going to be a very big part of Las Vegas. It’s been a 20 year fascination. There is no place like Las Vegas and it is the fastest growing city, it is a progressive city. I would say that no city has done a better job with the growing in terms of controlling it and making it work. It is far ahead of Atlantic City where I have been for so long. Atlantic City has done nicely, but they have been extremely progressive in Vegas. You’ve done an incredible job, and that’s why I am now here. The luxury market is in a little bit of a downward moment, but Vegas will continue to do great.”
Donald, who has also authored five #1 best-sellers about success, was introduced to the VIP’s at the ceremony by Apprentice winner Stefanie Schaeffer who will work in both Donald’s New York and Las Vegas buildings as his direct apprentice.
She won when she was flown into Vegas unknowingly and given two hours to do a presentation for the marketing of Tower Two and was judged by Donald and Donald Jr as “the best.”
She told me: “I’m looking forward to working in Vegas, there’s so much more we can do here. The Trumps, Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Mr. Trump, are very pleased I’m on board and so enthusiastic. I already love Vegas.”
She pointed out that the Trump Towers will have a luxury spa and salon, and free-form pools with cabanas on a 36,000 square foot recreation deck, plus a signature fine-dining restaurant.
Among the guests was Mayor Oscar Goodman who told the story of their first ever meeting in Manhattan, “It was the first night after his debut with The Apprentice so he couldn’t stop talking about his show and the giant ratings. My episode of CSI had just aired so I couldn’t stop talking about that. I don’t think either one of us was listening to the other, and my wife, Carolyn said we were just two ships passing in the night, but we became good friends and I’m thrilled he’s now here. He is a big shot—and I say that in the kindest of ways.”
Trump admits he’s wondering what to do about his on-going TV series. He said: “Television is seductive, but I am a very busy builder and TV takes too much time. NBC wants to renew it, after all it was once the No. 1 show and we’ve done it for six seasons. I’m deciding if I want to do it again or go with another network and another show.”
For now the Donald has the tallest building on Vegas’ new growing skyscraper skyline—but Steve Wynn’s new Encore Tower will eclipse it by another 10 feet in late 2008, with Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson’s new condo tower behind his currently under construction Palazzo predicted to beat both of them. However, the new Plaza Hotel from NYC to be built where the existing New Frontier currently stands may go as high as 680 feet tall. As my friend Norm Clarke said, “Call this a phallic war where the competition is ‘mine’s-bigger-than-yours.’”
But as Donald summed up: “Remember how tall I’ve built them in New York City and there’s no way I’m not going to have the best.”