Trump Branding To Be Removed From West Palm Beach Condo Towers
Florida's Trump Plaza will soon be getting a new name.
The condo board in charge of the 32-story, two-tower complex in West Palm Beach voted Jan. 19 to remove former President Donald Trump's name following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, the Palm Beach Post reported.
The decision comes as entities around the world disassociate from the Trump brand.
Cushman & Wakefield, JLL and CBRE have all backed off from working with The Trump Organization. Properties in Toronto, Panama and Rio de Janeiro that formerly carried the Trump name have already been rebranded.
The Trump SoHo, a New York hotel, became The Dominick in December 2017, and six residential buildings in the city dropped "Trump Place" signage, Newsweek reported.
In Florida, Professional Bank cut ties, and officials in Palm Beach County considered removing the name from a golf course. Farther north, however, an Orlando-area state legislator last week proposed renaming a 500-mile stretch of U.S. 27 after the former president — a gesture that met with controversy.
Trump Plaza, located about 3 miles from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach, was built in the early 1980s by Armour Guider Development Corp. Following a foreclosure, Trump borrowed $60M, bought the complex for $40M and made some renovations. Units sold slowly, however, and Trump auctioned them off and split proceeds with his lender.
Some news reports framed it as part of a sign that his real estate empire was crumbling.
"It's built to be sold. I'm deleveraging," Trump said amid the auction in 1991. "Things are working out well for me. The press doesn't like to write that."
Despite his exit, unit owners at Trump Plaza still saw value in the Trump name and kept it as the legal name and on signage.
In February 2020, after Trump signage had been removed from the top of the buildings for repairs, residents voted 178-20 to keep it off, the Post reported, though costs and evolving styles may have influenced the vote as much as political polarization did.
This summer, in the wake of national protests over the killing of George Floyd, street-level Trump Plaza signs were also taken down, which the management told residents was for their safety.
The Post reported that units are now priced between $1M and $4M-plus and that some listings expressly point out that there is no direct association with the former president.
"The Trump brand is damaged, so rebranding the complex is a wise move," said Burt Minkoff, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman.
CORRECTION, JAN. 28, 2:50 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story provided improper context on the Trump Organization’s relationship to properties. Six New York residential buildings that dropped the Trump branding were not owned by the Trump Organization but instead had licensing deals with the company. The story has been updated.
