TRUMP TOWER HOTEL PLUS

But an appeals court ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed. Wine's clients sued Trump and the developers. 'My clients thought he was building the hotel, because he certainly gives you the impression that it's his hotel.' 'He's splashed all over the marketing,' Wine says. They knew about Trump buildings elsewhere and thought he had the Midas touch. He says they looked at the glossy brochures. Wine says his clients felt the sales pitch misrepresented the project. 'I remember asking them through interpreters, 'Why did you invest in this?' And all they said back was 'Trump, Trump, The Apprentice,' ' he says. Wine represents 27 investors, and many are members of Toronto's Korean community who speak very little English. Collectively, the investors lost millions of dollars. Toronto lawyer Mitchell Wine says those never panned out. The investors claim they were promised sky-high occupancy rates and returns on their investment. Investors bought condominiums in the tower that could be rented out by the hotel. But his company, the Trump Organization, has a long-term management contract for the property, and Trump licenses his brand - his name - for a fee.

Trump has no ownership stake in the Toronto building. The developers signed a licensing agreement with Donald Trump similar to the ones for other hotels the president has been involved in. 'There were parts of the building itself that fell down onto the street and actually shut down parts of our downtown at times, because there were concerns about the structure's integrity,' he says. So it's not surprising there were problems, says Toronto City Councillor Josh Matlow. Part of the problem is that neither Shnaider nor Levitan had experience in hotel operations or construction. The building needed to be tethered underground, Pigg says, and parking was shifted to the first few levels. She says the site was so rocky, construction crews couldn't tunnel down as far as they would for building a high-rise in another part of the city.

TRUMP TOWER HOTEL PLUS

The hotel plus tower is built on a small parcel of land wedged between two smaller buildings. Pigg says right off the bat, there were problems with the site. 'But the whole thing was doomed to failure.' Trump was a big, big name, it looked like it would be a huge success,' she says. 'It looked great at the time because it was such a novelty for the city. There was a growing demand for hotels with lots of marble and granite, fine linens, luxurious spas and restaurants, says Susan Pigg, a former real estate reporter with the Toronto Star who covered the saga of the Trump hotel. Alex Shnaider owned the company and Val Levitan ran the day-to-day operations.īack when the idea for the project was first hatched, Toronto did not have a five-star hotel. The Trump project was developed by Talon International, a Toronto real estate development firm run by two Russian-Canadian entrepreneurs. Investors have lost millions of dollars and have sued Donald Trump and the hotel's developers. The soaring, 65-story glass and granite building has been plagued by financial setbacks, construction problems and legal woes. This is just one of the many miscalculations that have undermined the Trump International Hotel and Tower, even before construction began in 2007.

So instead of seeing a grand facade bearing the Trump name, what you see from the prestigious Bay Street side is a loading dock. But the hotel's entrance is actually around the corner. Think of it as Canada's answer to Wall Street. The official address of Toronto's Trump International Hotel and Tower is 325 Bay St., in the middle of the city's financial district. In the years since, 'There were parts of the building itself that fell down onto the street and actually shut down parts of our downtown at times, because there were concerns about the structure's integrity,' says a city council member. The Trump International Hotel and Tower opened in Toronto on April 16, 2012.

Trump tower hotel