Trump ends ties with Tampa tower
Associated PressPublished May 31, 2007
TAMPA — Donald Trump has pulled out of the $300 million, 52-story Trump Tower condominium project in Tampa, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court. Trump said in the lawsuit that developer SimDag owes him more than $1 million in unpaid licensing fees. Trump also said SimDag failed to show it had sold enough condos, valued between $700,000 and $6.2 million, to meet contractual obligations to him.
Trump was entitled to half the profit from the sale of 190 condos and a licensing fee of $2.8 million. The loss of the famous name could end the project.
“We could continue without Trump, but I don’t know if we’d even want to, ” said Eric Fordin of the Related Group, a Miami developer enlisted by SimDag to revive the project. The project, billed in January 2005 as one of the tallest towers on the Gulf of Mexico, has been burdened by financial setbacks, legal troubles and the slump in the housing market.
Construction stalled in November, and the lot is now empty. The phone at SimDag’s Clearwater corporate office was disconnected Wednesday.
