New York is exerting an ever greater influence on the British property industry. In this special feature Giles Barrie speaks with the figures shaping the city’s future – property tycoon Donald Trump, architect Daniel Libeskind and financier Steve Roth – and reports on the revival of Times Square
When comedy character Ali G lampooned a New York tycoon in April, he chose a developer. When fast-food giant McDonald’s wanted a star for its 2002 US advertising campaign, it chose the same developer. And the star of NBC’s new reality TV show? It’s him again.
If you haven’t guessed yet, the man is Donald Trump – aka ‘The Donald’. As famous for his lifestyle as the Gucci interior design and success of his developments, Trump is in a different orbit to the rest of the transatlantic property industry. Love him or loathe him – and some do loathe him – Trump is by far the world’s best-known property man. As he says: ‘I’m as public as I could be.’
Trump is the main operator in New York real estate, a world that is increasingly influencing British markets. New York is also the backdrop for the merger of Insignia Richard Ellis and CB Hillier Parker. And when the Big Apple’s office and retail markets recover, the UK’s will be six to nine months behind them.
So where else would you interview the man himself than Manhattan? Property Week met him at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in late May. Despite a fearsome reputation in media circles – just ask former TV presenter Selina Scott (of which more later) – he is a relaxed and affable interviewee. And his commitment to getting things right becomes clear when he calls at home in London a week later to help fill in any gaps.
Meeting Trump is an assault on the senses. The entrance to Trump Tower, his pride and joy, is a brass extravaganza and his face stares out from the dozens of magazine covers that adorn his 26th-floor office. Images of Trump in Time, Fortune and Playboy stare down from one wall, while the man himself sits fingering a foot-long pair of golden scissors, his back to fabulous views of Central Park.
It’s no wonder Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G) chose him in April as the ultimate American tycoon to whom he would pitch his ‘business concept’ of a glove to eat ice cream. But Trump is no mug and the prank backfired. ‘Ali G was fine but it was a total misrepresentation,’ he explains. ‘They called me and said it was for the British Broadcasting Corporation, that it was a very serious piece. I walked into a room, and this guy is sitting there and I felt sorry for him. As soon as he asked a couple of questions I knew it was a spoof and I left.’
Not that Trump is camera-shy. In September, he starts filming The Apprentice, an NBC TV show in which 20 young candidates navigate a simulated corporate environment in Trump’s office before being eliminated one by one. The winner will land a $100,000-a-year job.
‘It’s by the people who did Survivor,’ he says. ‘They wanted me to do it. I agreed to do it. I’m happy about it. NBC thinks it’s going to be their biggest show of the year. It’s a very exciting concept. It’s about the jungles of New York.’
No one knows those jungles better than Trump. He owns 100% of the privately held Trump Organisation, which has developed millions of square feet of office, hotel and apartment space across Manhattan. Its 2002 overall revenues, including extensive gaming operations in Atlantic City, were £6.2bn (up from £5bn in 2001). It employs 22,000 people and Trump is chairman, president and chief executive.
Having worked for his father’s residential development business in the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, Trump made his name in the 1970s by piecing together complex sites and redeveloping them to lavish standards.
The most successful of his recent commercial projects have been the purchase and reletting of the 2m sq ft (185,804 sq m) General Motors Building on Fifth and 59th Street and the rock-bottom acquisition and reletting of the 1.3m sq ft (120,773 sq m) 40 Wall Street. He is working on the £3bn, 100 acre (40.5 ha) redevelopment of Manhattan’s West Side Rail Yards, which will include 5,700 homes and 5m sq ft (464,511 sq m) of commercial space.
Urban warrior
Trump’s high profile in New York has made him passionate about city issues. Right now he is concerned about the smoking ban that has hammered business in bars and restaurants since its introduction by mayor Michael Bloomberg in March. ‘I’m not in favour of the smoking ban,’ he says. ‘I don’t smoke but it’s not a good thing. It’s making life too difficult for too many people.
‘Smoking is a terrible thing, but it’s an addiction, and there are people who can’t live without it. If they can’t live without, it you’re making their lives miserable.’
Another issue that gets Trump going is the emotionally charged redevelopment of the World Trade Center. Daniel Libeskind’s 10m sq ft (929,023 sq m) plans are popular with New Yorkers but Trump says they miss the point. ‘I don’t like the architecture of what was picked much, but the state, in their great genius, picked what they picked,’ he says.
His views on Libeskind’s design are perhaps to be expected given Trump’s up-and-down relationship with architects. He says: ‘I have great respect – actually I can’t say “great” because I have so much to do with the design – but I do pay great homage to famous architects and well-known architects and talented architects.
‘Philip Johnson is an architect I have used a lot; Norman Foster is a great architect; and then you have quirky architects who do things just for a splash and I’m not big fans of them generally. I think Frank Gehry is terrible as an architect.’
His biggest concern with Libeskind’s World Trade Center is not the design but its ability to succeed in a business sense. ‘Is it viable?’ he asks. ‘It’s going to be a long-term project. It’s going to be a very, very long time out. First, you need a market, and you certainly don’t have a market for anything that big.
‘If you have the really good locations, the office market is fine but it’s certainly not a strong market right now. The hotel market is terrible, because people don’t want to fly in aeroplanes. And who can blame them?’
But he continues: ‘Skyscrapers in general are doing very well. The psychology is now back to … I can’t say totally normal, but back to a pretty good point. I built a very tall building on the East Side, and there was some resistance after September 11 but now there’s none whatsoever. People really want the high floors.’
Trump knows what he’s talking about and is the ultimate hands-on developer. Younger brother Robert, vice-president Norma Foerderer, long-term ally Louise Sunshine and Insignia’s Dick Levy and Steve Siegel are trusted confidantes, but Trump makes the big decisions. ‘I’m totally involved with everything,’ he says. ‘The best thing I do is build. I know how to build. I learned that from my father by osmosis because I’d be a little guy watching him when he was building in Brooklyn and Queens.
‘Whether it’s a building or a golf course or a boat, I build. And I build at a very high level – the highest level. I know how to build a project on budget, on schedule and for it to be the finest job.’
His hands-on approach has no better illustration than in his dealings with contractors. ‘I buy every contract,’ he says. ‘I’ve developed over the years a sense of subcontractors. They are the keys. I know the good ones and the bad ones, the ones who will charge too much and the ones who want extras.’ Does he still phone them up himself and shout at them? ‘Oh yeah. I do it all the time. It’s part of my life.’
And he won’t skimp. ‘I have to go top-of-the-line. If I weren’t involved it wouldn’t be the same product.’ Trump explains that the homes next to his Trump National golf course 30 minutes from Manhattan are built from stone instead of cheaper wood. ‘It’s totally unnecessary. I don’t believe I’ll get any more money from stone than I would if I used wood but I have to have that high quality for two reasons: first, the name Trump; second, it would hurt the golf course if I didn’t.’
Among British developers, only Stanhope chief executive Sir Stuart Lipton pays this level of attention to detail on very large projects. And only Gerald Ronson, in the days when he erected ‘Heron’ signs on top of office buildings, comes close to the brand.
One top British developer, who asked not to be named, says: ‘Trump is a salesman par excellence – that’s what Americans are wonderful at. They are very gullible and will rush for things if they are well marketed. That’s not to say he doesn’t produce very good buildings, but he’s got huge cheek, huge gall, he’s a huge gambler and a speculator. He’s brash, upfront and noisy, and there’s no stigma attached to that in the States.’
Name check
Trump is also interested in almost any type of deal. Highly respected New York broker Siegel explains: ‘Donald is very smart and very quick. You don’t have to wait for any protracted discussions. He’s into opportunities: he didn’t buy his beauty pageants to be frivolous. People believe his name on a residential product. And there are people who just want to meet him in a negotiation.’
Imagine that. Deals on a plate because you’re famous. While British developers such as John Ritblat, Elliott Bernerd and Ronson might welcome this, they would surely hate the limelight Trump enjoys.
Trump says: ‘A lot of times the word gets out that Donald Trump is trying to buy a certain site because the owner wants to get value. I have [the attention] in England; I have it in Iowa. It’s a compliment, I guess, but I don’t like the way they do it.’
He explains that the branding of Trump Tower happened by luck. ‘When I was building Trump Tower, I bought the air rights over [jewellery store] Tiffany, and one of the things I negotiated was the right to call the building Tiffany Tower.
‘Then I went to a friend of mine who was very smart and I said: “Would you call the building Tiffany Tower or Trump Tower?” He said: “Would you change your name to Tiffany?” So I called it Trump Tower and it’s been a tremendous success.’
So far the Trump brand has yet to make it on to British soil. He has avoided involvement in the British property market, wary of building offices in a market he doesn’t know. ‘I have great relationships with a lot of terrific people there,’ he says. ‘Mohammed Al-Fayed is a friend of mine and is a great guy but a lot of people don’t know that.’ A tie-up with Harrods then? ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he answers. ‘I have to be very careful. I’ve turned down at least 10 jobs over the last five years in England because I don’t want to get into a situation where it’s not the best.’
But the prospect of a Trump project in Britain is growing. Labour’s long-term promise to deregulate gaming would open up a market about which Britons know little but where Trump would be in his element.
Ronson is rumoured to have held talks about a joint venture with Trump’s great rival, Las Vegas Golden Nugget owner Steve Wynn. And Trump, without saying whether it is Westminster City Council, a landowner or an intermediary, says he has been invited to discuss the proposed redevelopment of the north side of Leicester Square in London’s West End.
He says: ‘We have been approached on Leicester Square and yes, I’m interested in helping. I love Britain. It’s a special place. Something could happen there but I’d only do it if I had the right partner.
‘I’d want something big, and I’d want something very glamorous. I’d be very surprised if I didn’t do anything in England. Maybe some kind of combination – a hotel with a casino …’
Given that British Land, London & Regional and Paul Raymond are among the owners of the north side of Leicester Square, Trump may find it difficult to buy them out. But in a joint venture, or as a casino operator, who knows.
Although wary of involvement, Trump is intrigued about the state of the London office market, and asks after Canary Wharf. Told that altogether there is a 20% vacancy rate, he responds: ‘That’s because of the location,’ he says. ‘It makes downtown Manhattan look real convenient. It was all gleaming and new to start with and now location has become an issue.’
Public life
Times have not always been so good for Trump. In the early 1990s he was reckoned to be more than £500m in the red as he expanded too quickly into casinos, and he had to write down a string of assets.
He had always had strong relationships with funders such as Manufacturers Hanover and Shearson Lehman (latterly Lehman Brothers) and Citicorp, but he had to call in his fair share of financial favours during the worldwide downturn.
The Trump Organisation is private, so it will always be difficult to assess its profitability. But having refinanced in the early 1990s and bought a string of sites cheaply, there is little doubt that Trump is now a billionaire.
‘I learned that I handle pressure better than anyone else,’ he says. ‘I mean Rupert Murdoch came out great but I came out better than anybody. I was big in the 1980s but now I’m five times bigger than I was in the 1980s.
‘What I would say to anyone in trouble now is: hang in there and the market will come back. It may not be in our lifetime but that’s a minor detail.’
And his every up and down has been tracked by the media spotlight.
‘I’d love to have it 50:50 or even 25:75, the 25 being the limelight,’ he admits. ‘But you know it just doesn’t work that way in life. But it’s amazing; it’s been amazing. The good news is that I can get into any restaurant I want to very quickly.’
As you might expect with such a well-known figure, there is also a dark side to his character. Trump admits that he will fight and fight for anything he thinks is right. As a result, he earned himself a bad name in New York in the early 1980s by moving tenants out of apartment blocks and ripping ornaments out of historic buildings.
TV presenter Selina Scott has also fallen foul of New York’s property mogul. She ‘turned over’ Trump in a TV portrait, earning his condemnation and damaging her career in the process.
‘Selina Scott is not a very talented person, I guess, now she’s gone, she’s off air,’ he says. ‘I was very nice to her and she was very nasty. But I got a lot nastier than she ever got in the end.’
This is a side of Trump that is far from appealing. Indeed, the mention of his name provokes a hint of nervousness in anyone in New York. You get the sense that no one there would question his taste, but in such a judgemental and politically correct city is his taste in buildings and love of beautiful women not, well, kitsch?
‘No,’ he answers. ‘According to the polls I’m the most popular person in New York, so what can I tell you? The richest people in the world buy my product, and that’s only because they like it.’
And that sums up Trump. He is a 100%, unashamedly full-blown, copper-bottomed American star. Only The Donald could luxuriate in the United Jewish Appeal Federation’s honour ‘Hotel and Real Estate Visionary of the Century’.
As a symbol and barometer of US real estate, Trump is the main man.
But never forget that underneath all the showmanship, there is a very serious property man indeed.
NYC’s biggest landlord says the time is right for UK REITs
Real Estate Investment Trusts have been the envy of British property company chiefs for decades, and there are few bigger REITs than New York-based Vornado. Its chairman is Steve Roth, a 61-year-old who rarely gives interviews but who, as probably the biggest commercial landlord in New York, agreed to speak to Property Week. Operating from the 46th floor of a Seventh Avenue headquarters that affords magnificent views of the Hudson River, Roth’s organisation distributes all of its taxable income to shareholders. But the staff are well incentivised too: employees own up to a quarter of the shares and Roth and president Mike Fascitelli have come under fire in April for receiving $1m-plus bonuses on top of their salaries. But Roth – a friend of Stanhope chief executive Sir Stuart Lipton since they were in their twenties – insists REITs are the best structure of all, helping property investment companies to take a long-term view in building up their portfolios. This is partly because they do not pay Corporation Tax, an exemption the UK Treasury is considering in the hope that it will persuade more private and pension fund investors to invest in property vehicles. Roth, whose company owns 15m sq ft (1.4m sq m) in Manhattan within its £5.4bn of total assets and generates £875m last year in revenues, has no doubts about the long-term attractions of New York real estate. He says: ‘In 40 years in real estate I have never seen what is happening now, with the fundamentals of demand deteriorating, but the precipitous fall in interest rates forcing values up. ‘History has shown that if you have the financial wherewithal to get through tough times, well-located properties in New York, Washington DC and London always go up in value. If you had ever sold in the past you would have been a fool. Real estate will appreciate handsomely. My guess is that its value will double here in the next 10 years.’ While property company shares in the UK still languish at wide discounts to net asset value, REITs are trading at a premium to net asset value. Indeed, a bitter takeover battle in the US shopping centre sector has prompted one landlord, Simon, to offer $20 a share for another, Taubman, even though it initially offered $17.50 – and this will be a premium to NAV. Roth’s theory is that while Britain has seen the quoted sector halve in size as management and other bidders have been able to buy companies cheaply, creation of a REIT structure would end this type of activity. His argument is that property companies that became REITs would be more attractive to investors, allowing the sector to grow once again.
Sign of the Times
New York’s Times Square Business improvement district is often held up as a beacon for town centre management, but is it really such a success story? Partly, explains Times Square BID vice-president Ellen Goldstein: ‘We were the porno capital of the world.’ Now the porn cinemas have gone and Lehman Brothers and Ernst & Young have moved their world headquarters there. The Times Square BID’s £4.6m annual budget is paid for through a 0.03% levy on property owners’ annual tax bill in a system which Britain’s biggest property companies would like to see replicated here. In Times Square tenants do pay, but they tend to do so through their landlords, so that all involved with the 21.8m sq ft (2m sq m) of offices and 1.4m sq ft (130,063 sq m) of retail space in the area contribute to the BID. The cash is mainly spent on security, sanitation and marketing. Since September 11 the BID’s managers are conscious that Times Square could be a target for follow-up terrorist attacks. However, they now want to spend more money to ease some of the tensions over day-to-day management and tenant mix that have appeared in Times Square. Goldstein says: ‘Now that the tourists have gone, we need get New Yorkers. There are 200,000 office workers here now, and those people aren’t happy. We have an awkward mix of rather “upskill” office workers trying to get to their subway, screaming kids who want to see MTV stars and tourists ambling along, so congestion is an issue too.’ The BID also in talks about ‘twinning’ with London’s Piccadilly Circus Partnership, which includes Burford, Land Securities and British Land. The partnership’s chairman, Burford director Mark Boyes, says the BIDs can learn from each other, particularly as his is set to grow down Haymarket and to play a role in a revamp of Leicester Square.
Libeskind’s light at the end of Ground Zero
‘Of course it will work,’ snaps Daniel Libeskind when asked if the ‘wedge of light’ he is planning for the entrance to his redevelopment of Ground Zero will really be sunlight without shadow every September 11. This is the type of question the Polish-born architect is having to fend off a lot as the honeymoon period for his competition-winning design for a redevelopment of the World Trade Center comes to an end. Libeskind has also had to contend with the jibe that he adopted an over-sentimental approach in attempting to win support for his scheme from some critics, and even that he has sold out to the forces of the far right. But perhaps the most pertinent point about his 10m-12m sq ft (929,022-1.4m sq m) project is made by Donald Trump and Steve Roth (see REITs box, above), who raise concerns about the demand for the project. But Libeskind remains passionate about his scheme, which includes myriad features, such as its 1,776 sq ft (to commemorate the Year of American Independence) Freedom Tower. He tells Property Week: ‘The slurry wall [another feature, retaining the Pit within Ground Zero], the light and cultural activities flanking them all allow you to create an incredibly robust commercial project that shows the life of New York. ‘This will no longer just be a monolithic symbol. It will have a civic quality, and will be shaped by light and wind.’ Now that he has been selected by World Trade Center owners Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority of New York, Libeskind is haggling over the exact make-up of his project – and is expecting to make compromises. Silverstein wants five towers, Libeskind wants four; retail leaseholder Westfield wants to retain the layout of the shopping at the base of the scheme, Libeskind wants to restore an earlier street pattern. He says: ‘Someone once said to me, “You are successful in making everyone equally unhappy,” but I don’t see contradictions in the process we are going through. Westfield are used to what they had but I don’t think we are irreconcilable.’ Libeskind is on the verge of moving to Lower Manhattan and is expecting to submit his scheme for planning in September, with state politicians keen to see the Freedom Tower finished by 2008. Having designed museums in Berlin and Manchester, Libeskind is also working on a shopping centre in Switzerland, and says he now prefers the discipline enforced by commercial schemes. In the next five years, he will find that commercial approach enforced in full.
Trump’s working day
- Donald Trump lives in a three-storey apartment in Trump Tower, with onyx walls, mirrored columns and faux classical Greek murals on the ceilings.
- He gets up at 5am to read the papers, and goes ‘downstairs’ to his 26th floor office at 7am. Most of the morning is spent on the phone working on deals or inspecting building sites.
- Trump is hassled by people who claim he is interested in buying their sites when he is not, to inflate their values: ‘I have it in England. I had it over a ranch last week in Iowa. You know, Iowa?’
- He says he is more conservative in his dealmaking than in the 1980s, but that ‘you can never change your stripes totally. I had a lot of friends who went bankrupt in the last real estate bust and you’ll never hear from them again. I mean, they’re gone.’
- Lunch is spent out in Manhattan or a business lunch in the office. The afternoon is just ‘deals, conversations’.
- Trump will never take his main Trump Organisation public and as such has less to do with Wall Street than most property men. He says he likes to save money on filings and not to have to depreciate the value of his properties in company accounts.
- Foreign travel is limited and Trump is relieved that he never followed through a plan to develop in Germany, although he says he will one day.
- He finishes work at 6pm and an ideal evening is spent out quietly with supermodel girlfriend Melania Knauss or seeing his children. However, around half his evenings are spent on business meetings.
The ups and downs of Donald Trump
1946 Trump is born in 1946 to Brooklyn developer father Frank and mother Mary MacLeod, originally from the Hebrides 1960s Trump goes to New York Military Academy and Wharton School of Finance, while visiting sites with his father during his teens 1970s Moves to Manhattan in 1971 and in the mid-1970s negotiates the development of railway yards for the Jacob Javits Convention Centre 1970s Trump spends late 1970s and early 1980s piecing together site for and developing Trump Tower 1980s Onwards and upwards through the 1980s as he moves into Atlantic City with huge casino operation culminating in 2000’s opening of Taj Mahal 1987 Publishes The Art of the Deal, three million-selling guide on to how to make money in the US in the 1980s 1990 At the turn of the decade Trump hits trouble: wife Ivana files for divorce after he falls for former Miss Georgia Peach Marla Maples 1991 Trump is estimated to have net debts of $1bn as overexpansion and falling values take their toll. Forced to sell Trump Princessyacht 1992 Persuades banks to double or quit by backing him further, and emerges from the doldrums with The Art of the Comeback as values rise and the US enters its biggest-ever boom 1998 Buys the General Motors Building in May 1998 and leases it fully 1998 Buys and relets 40 Wall Street 2000 Expands out of New York and Atlantic City with projects in Chicago, California and Las Vegas 2002 New York-based Lockwood Publications launches Trump World, a magazine dedicated to everything that sums up the Trump brand
No comments yet