Donald Trump said Monday he intends to build a massive commercial real estate project including luxury housing and retail components at his Miami-area golf course.
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“I have just spent millions of dollars on the Blue Monster golf course at Trump National Doral in the heart of Miami,” he said in a statement, adding he "will be applying for 2,300 units of luxury housing, retail, and commercial space in Phase 1 at Doral."
Trump bought the Trump National Doral resort out of bankruptcy for $150M in 2012. The New York Times reported that of The Trump Organization’s properties, Doral is the biggest revenue generator, but was hard-hit by the pandemic, with revenues falling from $77.2M in 2019 to $44.2M in 2020. The resort has $125M in loans coming due in 2023 that Trump has personally guaranteed, Bloomberg reported last February.
Trump National Doral has four golf courses, a hotel, a 48K SF spa, tennis courts, a pool, a 24K SF Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom, and a clubhouse with restaurants.
Three of the golf courses were updated by designer Gil Hanse starting in 2014. Hanse told Golf Digest in 2018 that Trump was “very hands-on with the big picture, and tromped around the Blue Monster with us a lot. It was his idea to build the big amphitheaters around the ninth and 18th greens. He also played an important role in the landscaping choices.”
An employee at the Doral Planning and Zoning Department confirmed to Bisnow that no plans have yet been submitted for more development at the resort. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Last spring, state leaders approved a compact that would expand gambling in Florida and allow licenses to be transferred, which led to speculation that a casino could come to Doral. At the time, Eric Trump told The Washington Post that "many people consider Trump Doral to be unmatched from a gaming perspective — at 700 acres, properties just don’t exist of that size and quality in South Florida, let alone in the heart of Miami.”
The gambling compact was invalidated in federal court, but an appeal is pending. For decades, Miami's biggest developers have been on opposite sides of the gambling issue.
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