Michael Sallah reports on the financial meltdown surrounding Donald Trump's completed but empty $200 million International Hotel & Tower on Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Sallah recounts the process by which Trump's dream of "a luxury high-rise shaped like an ocean liner and bearing his name that would turn Fort Lauderdale Beach into an international draw" has turned into a "hulking, empty tower casting a shadow over one of Florida's most popular beachfronts" and a court battle for duped investors.
Was the project a victim of a historically poor real estate market or more nefarious reasons? All of the above, it sounds like from Sallah's report featuring project delays, a market plunge, shady deals with a onetime mob associate, and the eventual withdraw of Trump's name from the project mere months before it was scheduled to open.
"Three years after the tower was to open its doors, investors are demanding millions in down payments on at least 60 units - priced between $500,000 and $3 million - accusing the developers of massive fraud."
Read the full story: Trump’s tower of trouble: anatomy of a financial fiasco
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