Luxury Trump condos come with catches
Photo credit: Photo by Jefferson Siegel | The Trump Hotel Soho construction site at 246 Spring Street will house 400 condos whose owners can live in no more than 120 days/yr or 29 consecutive days
With an outdoor pool on the fifth floor, fine dining at street level and a private library in the lobby, the 42-story Trump SoHo won't only be the tallest building in the neighborhood, it will also be the most luxurious.
Yet no matter how many millions they pay for the 400 condos that will soon be available for purchase, the new owners will not be permitted to hang even a single family photograph on the wall.
Nor will they be allowed to live in their condos for more than 29 consecutive days or more than 120 days in any year. The rest of the time the condo must be rented out as a hotel room.
These rules are specified in a "restrictive declaration" from the city's Department of Buildings, which the developers had to sign before construction of the Trump SoHo was approved last May. The area is zoned for manufacturing, and hotels are the only kind of residential buildings allowed.
"We are required to change the keys when the owner is not there," said Julius Schwarz, executive vice president with Bayrock Group, Donald Trump's partner in the project. "There is an owner's closet in each unit, so you don't have to schlep a suitcase every time you come to town."
Other than this closet, there will be no physical evidence to hotel guests that a private individual owns the condo.
Preservationists opposed to the project's massive scale have called the restrictive declaration a sham, and say it is a "fig leaf" to disguise the fact that owners will live there year-round.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said she "remains deeply concerned that these requirements may not be strictly enforced by the hotel's managing company," and that "this hotel may not always receive the necessary attention [from DOB inspectors] to ensure the agreement is being met."
While this is not the city's first condo hotel (the St. Regis on Fifth Avenue is another), Trump SoHo, at Spring and Varick streets, is the first to be governed by such restrictions.
If an owner overstays his 29 consecutive or 120 yearly days at the Trump SoHo, he will be charged two times the daily rate that is charged to hotel guests. When he is not present, the owner will receive some portion of the daily rate charged to hotel guests staying in his condo. Schwarz declined to discuss the financial specifics of this profit-sharing.
Even the wealthiest of owners will not be able to just "spend their way out of a fine" and live there year-round, said Schwarz, because the city can bring a lien on any condo whose owner is not complying with the restrictive declaration.
If the buildings department believes that Trump SoHo management is lying about occupancy, it can order the building to hire a private investigator to conduct a full audit.
Still, even with the restrictions, real estate observers say the Trump SoHo will sell fast.
"Any effort to conform current market conditions to zoning realties is going to lead to some very peculiar outcomes," said Michael Slattery, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York.
"Maybe the restrictions are a nuisance, but they are not a deterrent."
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