Allow Me To Reintroduce Myself: SoHo Hotel Sees Huge Turnaround After Dropping Trump Name
If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then the same cannot be said of a hotel room — at least where Donald Trump is concerned.
In the year after Trump's election as president, business at the Trump SoHo hotel sagged behind that of its nearby competitors. In the year since it was renamed the Dominick, business has soared at rates far outstripping the rest of the field, Bloomberg reports.
From 2017 to 2018, the Dominick saw its revenue per available room jump over 20%, according to STR research obtained by Bloomberg. Its room rates rose $51 (also around 20%) and it rented out a room for the night 7,000 more times than the year before.
In previous years, all of the above indicators had been flat or worse, according to STR. The only meaningful change owner CIM Group made from 2017 to 2018 was removing the Trump name from the outside and branded materials on the inside, Bloomberg reports. The hotel has rooms larger than its competitors and virtually unmatched views of the surrounding city.
The revival is especially stark in the context of the struggling luxury hotel market in New York. While room rates rose over 20% for the Dominick, its competitors only saw a 2% rise year over year, Bloomberg reports. The 2018 data seems to justify CIM Group's decision, one that has been repeated all over New York City and at the former Trump International hotel in Toronto. Since the Toronto hotel was renovated and rebranded as the St. Regis, its room rates and RevPAR also ticked up, the general manager told Bloomberg.
Whether in spite of the Dominick's recent success or because of it, CIM Group is marketing the building for sale. It only came into possession of the hotel after original developers The Sapir Organization and Bayrock Group defaulted on a construction loan CIM provided, after which CIM won a foreclosure auction. Selling a stabilized asset with growing revenue, CIM could stand to make a hefty profit.
