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Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
By Robin Leach (contact)
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump, right, with Robin Leach, hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump, right, with Robin Leach, hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
Ever since I’ve known real-estate billionaire Donald Trump, he’s been all about luxury, white-glove super-service, the high life and the best of the best. It’s been his mantra, his calling, his devotion and his dedication as he set about re-carving the skylines of major U.S. cities.
His son Eric is a chip off the old block. Eric, too, has become a household name across America, more so because of his regular appearances on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” than for his real-estate dealings.
But Dad and he have the same look, not quite the same hair but similar, and the ability with grand hyperbole to promote and sell like no other builder and developer on Earth.
I’ve known Eric since he was a youngster, and he’s grown up as a duplicate of The Donald following in his father’s famous footsteps. They sound alike and talk alike.
Eric hosted a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at Trump International Hotel and Tower last Thursday. The party was an opportunity to showcase the condo-hotel’s new attractions, new spa offerings, new executive sous chef Sydney Jones, after 10 years with Four Seasons Hotels, and the new on-call house Maverick Helicopter service for condo owners and hotel guests.
Trump International is more than 600 feet high and has the Trump-trademark, 24-karat gold glass shining like a jewel over our Las Vegas skyline. It opened on March 31, 2008, with 1,282 hotel suites ranging from studios to three-bedroom penthouses, a fitness center, salon and spa and heated outdoor pool.
The Trump Hotel Collection was launched in October 2007 and is presided over by The Donald and his three children, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr., with properties in New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Panama, Rio de Janeiro, Vancouver, B.C., Washington, D.C., Ireland and the Trump National Doral in Miami, where the Miss Universe Pageant will be in January with our Miss Nevada turned Miss USA Nia Sanchez competing.
The building here opened to sell condos at the height of the economic downturn, and there were rumors of weak sales and discounted hotel room rentals. But as of mid-October, milestone sales of studio units hit $700-per-square-feet pricing, among the highest in Las Vegas.
Eric said that more than 50 percent of sales in the past six months have originated from Europe, China, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia.
“Overseas buyers and locals have embraced what is unquestionably one of the greatest and most exciting condo developments in all of Las Vegas. The strong sales momentum and high price points are a testament to buyers’ trust in the Trump brand.”
In the past two years, condo sales have grown exponentially with a five-fold increase. Residences range up to as much as $3.75 million. Eric, who is about to get married, is the executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization, which manages Trump International.
He talked privately with me in his cabana as 450 guests partied poolside.
Eric said, “We’ve had so much good luck. We’re buying everything around the world and having a great time doing it.”
Slow down a moment! Let’s talk about Las Vegas for a minute. It started off here as a little bit of a trouble because of the timing, not because of what you built, but where is it now?
I would say it’s the opposite. We started off as a huge home run. We sold out all 1,282 units at the highest prices in Las Vegas, then the recession came around and banks stopped financing, and Las Vegas was probably hit harder than any market in the country. I think we’re very fortunate. We’ve never dropped our prices. We continue to hold our prices unlike the competition, who brought their prices down.
We maintained a high price, and we came out of the recession and continued to sell. We have virtually no debt, a stable building, we got it built on time and under budget, and people really loved the product. Given the couple of years that Las Vegas suffered, I think we did amazing.
So where do you take it from here?
We’re still selling units. We’re doing great. It’s an affluent group of people who are buying in the building. The building is meticulous. We get unbelievable reviews and ratings. Conde Nast just rated us the No. 1 business hotel in Las Vegas.
We have fun with it. As a family, we love our assets; we spend a lot of time with our assets. This hotel is great, and it’s been my baby for the last seven to eight years now. We’re proud of it.
Are you looking at other opportunities in Las Vegas?
Yes. Las Vegas is a place that’s treated us incredibly well. We’ve had nothing but amazing success. It’s a town that’s very developer friendly, unlike a lot of places around the world these days. We’d certainly do something else if some great opportunity came along. We’re really proud of this place.
I’m not sure we’d do something that would be directly competitive with this building, probably not, but there’s always opportunities that we look at, and at the right time we might hop in. We’re not seeing it right now. But at the right time, there’s no question that as a company we will do more in Las Vegas in the years to come.
Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
Erik Kabik / ErikKabik.comEric Trump hosts a party at Trump International Hotel and Tower on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014, in Las Vegas.
There is no question? You just don’t know what it will be?
We’ll find it and let you know! As a family company, we say we wait for the best things. In each city, we wait for the prime locations of every respective city, and when they come and we can make a great deal, we hop in quickly and build something that’s amazing. It’s always been our recipe, and when that opportunity is there, we focus on it wherever it is in the world. It’s what’s made our company really special.
You have so many people and so many companies who are so focused on one specific geographical region, and because of that they have to grab an asset at all times, which maybe leads them to buying a B location or a C location. If we’re not seeing something in Las Vegas, well we’ll look at China, we’ll look at the Philippines, we’ll look at Toronto, we’ll look at Vancouver, we’ll look at Brazil.
How many properties do you run now?
We’re at 11 hotels. When I came into the business, we had one, which was Trump International at Columbus Circle in New York, and we’ve grown incredibly rapidly. This year alone we added Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., a great hotel in Rio in Brazil, Vancouver, and a couple of others. So really we’re flying. We also added the Doral in Miami.
Turnberry was the most recent acquisition in Scotland, and then also a big hotel in Ireland right on the ocean. We’re buying up everything we can get our hands on. We started with three golf properties eight years ago. We’re at 17 today — in L.A., Westchester, N.Y., Palm Beach, Fla., including Turnberry, which is rated the No. 1 golf course in the world. So we’re having a lot of fun with that.
Commercial buildings are doing great, the retail spaces are doing great. We’ve got everybody from Gucci to you name it. In residential, we’re building the tallest building in Manila right now in the Philippines. We have great projects in Punta del Este, Turkey, Panama and lots of projects in India and China.
How do you keep track of it all?
We don’t sleep, and we spend a lot of time on planes.
Does that change when you get married in two weeks?
No! One of the first things my fiancee (Lara Yunaska, a producer for “Inside Edition”) learned about me is that we’re an international real-estate company; that means we travel a lot. We love what we do. We’re building some of the most exciting projects around the world.
If that doesn’t make you want to travel, you should not be in the business. You’ve got to love it, you’ve got to love being on a plane, you’ve got to get excited about the assets; otherwise, go into a different career because this job isn’t for you. Real estate is something special to us, and we all definitely have the bug.
When the family gets together to discuss things, you are family in the end, so it’s no different than any other family sitting down for dinner and saying we have to talk about a few things, right?
What we discuss is probably very different than 99 percent of families sitting down to talk about things. It’s bigger things and bigger projects, but it’s four alpha people who love their jobs and are good at their jobs and who really care.
Most family companies in general are a little bit disastrous. I think the difference with us is that we get out of bed every morning and are the first people in the office and the last people to leave at night. We travel more than anybody else in the company. We are really excited about what we do. We love building things.
I said to your dad once, “You’ll never stop building.” He’s a builder more than anything else?
True, and he does it better than anybody. I think if there’s one thing he would like to be known for, it’s not “The Apprentice,” it’s not his marketing abilities, it’s not the celebrity aspect. I think he’d want to be known as a great builder and somebody who’s really phenomenal at real estate. There’s no one better. His gut intuition is phenomenal.
* * *
Check back Wednesday for Part 2 of our conversation with Eric, when he talks about why Atlantic City went so wrong, plus, Miss USA, Miss Universe and “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.
Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.
Follow Vegas DeLuxe on Twitter at Twitter.com/vegasdeluxe.
Follow Sun A&E Senior Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.
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