How Donald Trump put his name on a South Florida building for the first time

Donald Trump first made a name for himself in South Florida when he bought the Mar-a-Lago mansion in 1985.

A year later, he purchased condo towers just across the Intracoastal in West Palm Beach and eventually hoisted his name in big letters at the top of the high-rise. The Plaza was now the Trump Plaza, the first time his name went on a building in South Florida.

But the name wasn’t magical for sales, and the condo continued to struggle to sell units.

Several years ago, when the Trump name came off for repairs, condo leaders decided to keep it off. The Plaza of the Palm Beach Beaches lives on without the Trump name.

Here’s a look at Trump’s purchase and efforts to market the building, chronicled in the Miami Herald’s archives:

Down goes the Trump name

Published: Dec. 5, 2017

The 10-foot letters that spell TRUMP PLAZA atop the east and west sides of a two-tower condo complex in downtown West Palm Beach mysteriously vanished a couple weeks ago.

They’d been ablaze nightly high above downtown and the Intracoastal without interruption for at least 24 years, even when rebellious residents who objected to President Donald Trump’s divisive electioneering unsuccessfully tried to change the building’s name.

The letters were taken down just days after a protest brought dozens of Trump opponents to the door steps of the plaza’s well-heeled residents.

But finding out what happened to the letters is a lot like covering the Trump administration: Depends whom you’re asking!

The official line comes from Abe Bernstein, president of Trump Plaza of The Palm Beaches Condominium Association.

He says the board voted to build a new roof on both towers and re-paint the entire structures.

“For us to be able to do that, we needed to take down the letters,” said Bernstein, a Mar-a-Lago regular. “They’ll be down for three to four months then they’re going back up.”

Bernstein denied Trump Plaza is trying to make the building less of a magnet for protests.

“It’s a free country,” Bernstein said. “People are welcome to protest here at any time for as long as they’re respectful.”

Then there’s the unofficial line, from one of the complex’s 350-plus residents who asked to remain anonymous.

“The building staffers have been telling residents that once the roof is repaired, we’ll revisit the issue of the building name,” the resident said. “But that’ll take a while.”

With condos currently selling for upward of $3 million, the aging building is home to many people who can’t afford a home in Palm Beach but like to look at the town from their balcony.

Trump paid $40 million to buy the building in bankruptcy in 1986, when it was known as The Plaza, then borrowed another $60 million to spruce it up.

At that time, however, condo sales were slow and the building never paid the dividends Trump had hoped for. So he had friendly residents of the 33-story, 221-unit structure approve a new name, Trump Plaza, and made sure the letters on the top of the buildings could be seen from both Palm Beach and West Palm Beach.

Then, he defaulted on the loan.

The Trump signs did come down for a cleanup in February 1994. At the time, too, some residents managed to force a vote before the letters were put back.

Condo auction at Trump’s condo towers

Published April 29, 1991

Donald Trump’s financial empire shrunk some more Sunday as all remaining condominiums at the troubled Trump Plaza of the Palm Beaches were sold during a four-hour auction that drew 750 potential bidders to the PGA National Resort Hotel.

Another 225 people in New York and 105 in Chicago joined in the bidding via a telephone hook-up. When the final unit sold at 5:05 p.m., Trump and his lender, Marine Midland Bank, had unloaded $15.2 million in real estate.

But The Donald didn’t hang around until the bitter end. His brief presence Sunday was mere window dressing for the bank- ordered auction of the condos in the West Palm Beach twin- tower high rise on the wrong side of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Trump posed for pictures, signed autographs and conducted a sort of moving press conference as he stalked the hotel’s ballroom.

As usual, Trump was upbeat about his future, even though his once formidable empire was carved up among various lenders last week.

“I come out fine on everything, but the press doesn’t report that,” he said.

This was the second time that Trump and the bank had resorted to an auction to unload the luxury condos and pay off a $27.1 million mortgage. A December auction at The Breakers Resort on Palm Beach resulted in only 35 units sold for $8.8 million and drew only 137 bidders.

The lowest bid in December was $180,000 for a 1,927-square- foot townhouse.

Sunday’s lowest successful bid was $167,500 for a same size condo with an original asking price of $301,400. The highest bid, excluding the Grand Penthouse, was $275,000 for a three- bedroom corner unit with a previous price of $414,000.

The Grand Penthouse, 3,841-square-feet and an original asking price of $1.8 million, sold in December for $720,000. But when the buyer backed out of the deal it went back on the block Sunday. This time the winning bid was $700,000 from Cleveland resident Morry Weiss, president of American Greetings Corp., a manufacturer of greeting cards.

“It’s a beautiful facility,” Weiss said of Trump Plaza.

The auctioneer, Chicago-based Sheldon Good & Co., had planned to sell only 15 units at absolute auction with no minimum bid. But after those 15 were sold, things were going so well that all the others were sold at absolute auction, too. This meant Marine Midland removed its option to reject bids after the auction closed.

Steven Good, president of Sheldon Good & Co., said a majority of bidders paid cash for their units. Others will receive 3 percent off their bid price if they close in 10 days and the remaining buyers have 45 days to close at the bid price. The company sold seven units, for $2.7 million, before the auction.

Richard Allison, a Palm Beach real estate agent who lives at Trump Plaza, said he was pleased with the auction. He said buyers probably will have to spend at least $30,000 to make the mostly unfinished condos livable, and when you factor that in prices are similar to resales of existing units.

Allison was relieved that bids didn’t go as low as $100,000 to $140,000, as some real estate experts had predicted.

And now that the building is 100 percent sold out, he said owners can hire their own management company and even remove the Trump name that was added when Trump bought the 221-unit project in foreclosure in 1986 for $40 million.

“It was The Plaza to begin with,” Allison said.

Although Trump whisked out of the ballroom after the first unit was gaveled sold, he’s not out of the local real estate scene.

Trump said he still plans to subdivide Mar-A-Lago, the seaside Palm Beach mansion he bought for $10 million in 1985, into eight mini-estates. He has no plans to sell the estate outright, he said.

“Mar-A-Lago is mine. It’ll always be mine,” he said.

Trump makes an appearance

Published: March 24, 1991

They live in a building that bears his name, but residents of Trump Plaza of the Palm Beaches don’t often get to see The Donald.

The fallen king of buy low, sell high breezed in Saturday for a quick photo opportunity and to plug his new way of doing business in today’s troubled real estate market: buy low, sell low.

“I’m a little worried. We paid full price when we moved in,” said Grace Bevignani, a Trump Plaza resident for 2 1/2 years.

But like other owners who gathered in the lobby of the high-rise, twin-tower complex to hear Trump tout the upcoming auction of 70 units, Bevignani said she wouldn’t trade her condo for a new address.

Unfortunately for Trump, not enough buyers fell in love with Trump Plaza, a tough sell from the beginning. The 32-story project is on the wrong side of the Intracoastal Waterway, in West Palm Beach, not Palm Beach.

But if you can get prospective buyers to overlook the matter of geography, Trump Plaza can be very appealing, said resident Richard Allison, a Palm Beach real estate agent who bought Lee Iacocca’s condo.

At a press conference before the champagne reception for residents and real estate agents, the financially strapped Trump said he decided to hold another auction because he wants to unload the condos quickly.

“The market in Florida is very soft,” he said. “It’s a good time to buy property.”

Trump said 41 units have been sold in the last three months. Most of them were sold through a bank-ordered December auction at The Breakers resort on Palm Beach.

The second auction will be April 28 at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens with satellite link to Chicago and possibly New York City.

A cruise for Trump Plaza residents

Published Jan. 27, 1989

In what his people were not calling a marketing ploy, developer Donald Trump shipped his Trump Plaza tenants out to sea Thursday aboard the Trump Princess.

Decked out in nautical white and dripping, for the most part, in diamonds, the condominium owners spent four hours on the ceaselessly rocking yacht, drinking champagne, eating oysters, and taking in the decor.

“It’s just really important to us to have a good relationship with our people,” said Trump Organization vice president Blanche Sprague, as she sat on a white leather couch at the rear of the Princess.

“Of course, we want people to know the building is there and the people are happy,” Sprague said.

The free cruise for Trump Plaza residents topped off a few weeks of full-page newspaper ads about the West Palm Beach condominium complex.

Though the Trump ads proclaim “an unprecedented number of new Trump Plaza residents,” one real estate analyst said occupancy rates in the buildings are faltering.

“It’s not doing very well,” said Miami analyst Mike Cannon, president of AREEA, the Appraisal and Real Estate Economic Association, a company that compiles and analyzes statistics on the South Florida real estate market.

In 1988, Cannon said, the 221-apartment building sold only 28 units, for a total sale of about $10 million. By contrast, another condominium development on the waterway in Boca Raton sold 159 units in the same period of time, for a total price of $52 million, Cannon said.

The problem with the building, sandwiched between two office buildings on the Intracoastal Waterway in downtown West Palm Beach and only a few blocks from a railway, is its “location, location, location,” Cannon said.

But internecine battles between real estate experts were not exactly on the minds of the boat riders as the Broward County coastline faded into the distance off the Princess’ rear end.

“They said to dress casually, and all these people came dressed like they’re going to dinner at the Ritz Carlton,” said passenger Florence Robbins.

“They went out and bought clothes to wear on the ship. Isn’t that funny? It’s tacky,” said Robbins, who wore white pants, a blue-and-white striped shirt and a bright pink sweater.

Holding their drinks with napkins embossed with Trump’s name, the condo owners tiptoed around the ship, formerly owned and decorated by indicted arms dealer Adnan Kashoggi. The conspicuous-consumption decor includes elephant-hide ceilings, suede walls and a gold-fauceted bathroom bidet.

“What do I like best about it? You’re going to laugh -- the bathrooms,” said visitor Judith Stillman-Grossman, who wore white as she lounged in the sun on the ship’s forward deck.

Said real estate analyst Cannon of the cruise: “It’s a gimmick.”

Trump gets a loan to buy Plaza condo

Published Nov. 9, 1986

New York City investor and builder Donald J. Trump has obtained a loan of $60 million to buy a distressed condominium high-rise project at 525 S. Flagler Dr., West Palm Beach.

The acquisition loan is with Marine Midland Bank. The loan enabled Trump to take title to the foreclosed condominium, the Plaza of the Palm Beaches, from a subsidiary of the Bank of New York.

The twin buildings had been foreclosed from the Armour Development Associates Corp., whose president was Robert J. Armour. The Bank of New York several months ago obtained a final judgment against Armour for $93,591,106, plus $250,000 in attorney fees.

The buildings were sold to Trump for $40,717,889. This resulted in a loss to the bank of $52,873,217. Additional funds from the loan will be used to complete the project.

Trump was able to buy the building at the equivalent of a 56.5 percent discount.

Rescue of a struggling condo

Published July 22, 1986

Millionaire New York real estate developer Donald Trump and Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca have agreed to purchase the Plaza Condominium in West Palm Beach for $40 million, ending months of speculation over the fate of the ailing project.

A spokesman for Trump said the 40-year-old developer signed a contract with the Bank of New York late last Thursday, but she refused to disclose the terms of the transaction, or details about Iacocca’s role.

Trump could not be reached for comment.

The bank, which sued to foreclose on the troubled 32-story twin, luxury apartment buildings Dec. 31, repurchased the Plaza last week for $43.2 million at a public auction held at the Palm Beach County Courthouse. It was the largest foreclosure sale ever in Palm Beach County. Observers have blamed the Plaza’s troubles on a glut in South Florida’s luxury condominium market.

The Bank of New York confirmed that the buildings, which overlook the Intracoastal Waterway, had been sold to Trump but would not comment on the purchase price or payment terms. Developer Robert Armour & Associates owed the bank more than $94 million in principal and interest at the time the bank bought back the project. A bank spokesman would not say how much the bank lost on the deal.

The Trump spokesman said the Plaza will remain a condominium. She said she did not know if the apartment’s prices, which range from about $300,000 to nearly $1 million, will stay the same. So far, only six of the 224 luxury units have been sold.

Trump is best known as the developer of the 68-story Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and owner of the New Jersey Generals football team.

No stranger to Palm Beach County real estate, in 1985 he purchased the 118-room Palm Beach mansion once owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post.