Donald Trump is grabbing headlines again as he burns bridges left and right in his zany presidential run. Speaking of The Donald, remember when New Orleans almost had its very own Trump-tastic high-rise?
Announced right before Hurricane Katrina when America was like, hella rich, the Trump International Hotel & Tower New Orleans is one of New Orleans' many storied arrested developments.
The day before Hurricane Katrina hit and the floods followed — when, as this NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune story says, "the national real estate market was hot and money was flowing" — Trump and his team of Florida developers announced plans for a project to go up on Poydras Street. The 70-story, $400 million condominium project, which also planned to include a hotel and restaurant, would have been the tallest building in Louisiana.
Katrina happened, and the development lost considerate steam before July 2011 when the land was foreclosed on and sold at auction to Jim Huger, the chief executive of Premium Parking Service LLC, for $5.44 million. Last year the real estate blog Canal Street Beat wrote a post about Trump Tower for a series called "The Dead Pool" about grand developments that just never happened.
Do you have nostalgia for any New Orleans developments that never came to be?
· Macy's will end business relationship with Donald Trump [Washington Post]
· Plans for building Trump Tower in New Orleans are officially dead [NOLA.com]
· The Dead Pool: Trump International Hotel and Tower [Canal Street Beat]