Photo illustration by PAM KILLINGSWORTH/REVIEW-JOURNAL
The sales office for Donald Trump’s high-rise venture on the Strip, Trump International, will be open for the groundbreaking Tuesday. Later in the day, Ivana Trump will hold a meeting about her high-rise.
REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO
On the same day New York real estate developer Donald Trump breaks ground on his initial Las Vegas high-rise residential-hotel project, a competing venture bearing the name of his former wife has planned an event for sales agents.
And Trump isn't all too pleased.
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Trump will be joined Tuesday morning by New Frontier owner Phil Ruffin in a groundbreaking ceremony for the $500 million Trump International Hotel & Tower. The 64-story, 1,282-unit project is being constructed on six acres behind the New Frontier across from the Fashion Show mall.
That afternoon, in a ballroom at the Bellagio, real estate agents can learn about Ivana Trump Las Vegas, a proposed 80-story residential high rise at corner of the Strip and Sahara Avenue on the site of the former Holy Cow restaurant. Planned for 943 units, the building bears the name of Trump's first wife.
A newspaper ad last week, with a photo of Ivana Trump in front of a project rendering, touted the meeting for real estate agents. Public sales for the units are to begin Aug. 14.
Donald Trump, who has said the 1,282 units in his project are 100 percent reserved, with more than 2,000 buyers waiting in the wings should sales fall through, isn't sure his former wife's venture will ever be built.
"I wonder how many of these proposed projects will actually happen," Trump said Friday of the many high-rise condominium projects that have been announced for the Las Vegas market. "I question whether or not her developers have been able to get financing. That project is in a terrible location."
Trump said the Trump International, modeled after a similar venture in New York City, is fully financed and will begin actual construction later this summer.
"Mine will be the most spectacular project of its kind in Las Vegas," Trump said.
He's not happy, however, that his ex-wife is trying to capitalize on the Trump name.
"It's sad to see this, actually," Trump said. "I've written five bestselling books and her book bombed, I have the number one television show in America ("The Apprentice") and herws didn't work out. It's sad to see her giving up her name like that."
This isn't Ivana Trump's first foray into real estate. She lent her name to a residential development in Miami called Bentley Bay. But the developer, Italy's Riccardo Olivieri, miscalculated construction costs and wound up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2004.
Konnel Peterson, a Re-Max broker in Las Vegas, said there are many new developments under construction, but there are also buyers.
"I think overall there's a huge demand in Las Vegas due to the city's weather, tax climate, job growth and proximity to California," Peterson said.
However, several Las Vegas condominium projects have failed recently before construction had even started, including a planned development that involved former NBA superstar Michael Jordan.
Trump International was announced last summer.
The tower will have 880 studio units and 352 one-bedroom condominiums on floors 16 through 59, and 50 suites of one, two or three bedrooms on the top five floors. Prices range from $600,000 to $6 million.
Prospective buyers deposited $10,000 or $20,000.
The tower would place Trump's name in lights high above Las Vegas, within walking distance of the Strip and near Wynn Las Vegas.
Trump International's $3 million, 8,100-square foot sales center in front of the New Frontier will open for the groundbreaking.
