The Pennsylvania Avenue hotel run by former President Donald Trump's real estate company could soon be under new management.
The Trump Organization is in advanced talks to sell the rights to the Trump International Hotel to Miami-based CGI Merchant Group for more than $370M, The Wall Street Journal reports.
CGI Merchant Group is in talks with hotel operators to bring a new brand to the property, including Hilton Worldwide's Waldorf Astoria, the Wall Street Journal reported. CGI last year launched a fund to buy hotels with backing from retired baseball player and businessman Alex Rodriguez.
The 263-room hotel opened in the historic Old Post Office Building in September 2016, just two months before Trump was elected president. The property is owned by the federal government, which signed a long-term lease with the Trump Organization to operate the luxury hotel.
In 2019, the Trump Organization retained JLL to seek buyers for the hotel rights, seeking as much as $500M. It then put the marketing process on hold in November 2020 after the coronavirus pandemic devastated the hotel industry, and in June it brought on Newmark to put the property back on the market.
The D.C. hotel was the subject of investigations and lawsuits throughout Trump's presidency, and last week a congressional committee revealed new details on the hotel's finances. A letter from two Democrats on the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform said that while Trump disclosed making $150M in income on the hotel from 2016 to 2020, it separately declared losses of nearly $74M during that time period.
