The Trump Organization has announced it is abandoning the project to build its first tower in Australia, less than three months after signing the deal, with allegations that its Australian development partner has failed to meet certain financial obligations. The luxury tower, linked to the family of US President Donald Trump, in the Gold Coast area, aspired to become the tallest building in Australia.
The organization signed an agreement in February with the developer Altus Property Group to develop a skyscraper called Trump Gold Coast International Hotel and Tower, 340 meters high and 91 floors. The project was valued at 1.5 billion Australian dollars (1.09 billion US dollars), on the Gold Coast, a popular tourist and coastal destination in the Australian state of Queensland. The project planned to complete the works around 2030.
Construction of the building was dependent on its licensing partner, Altus, meeting some obligations that the Trump Organization says have not been met, and added that it would soon explore other potential projects to build a Trump building in Australia.
“After months of negotiations and empty promises, one after another, on a supposed A$1.5 billion project, Altus Property Group was unable to meet the most basic financial obligation that was due upon signing the agreement,” a Trump Organization spokesperson told Reuters by email.
The Trump Organization spokesman said Altus CEO David Young attributed the termination of the contract to “certain world events,” calling it “simply a strategy to divert attention from his own failures and failures.”
For his part, Altus Property CEO David Young stated that the Trump brand had become “toxic for Australians” following recent international events and the start of the , although he defended that the Trump Organization “has nothing to do with the president.” He also noted, in a LinkedIn publication reported by Efe, that several Australian organizations had managed to gather 120,000 signatures to stop the development of the property, although he stated that only 10% of them corresponded to Gold Coast residents. The signature website indicated that they felt “deeply uncomfortable with the Trump brand and what it represents.”
Young had reported that the final agreement with the company was signed on February 14 at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Florida, and defended at that time that the brand represented luxury and quality. However, this Tuesday night, the Australian businessman indicated that he was already in talks with other international luxury brands to continue developing the project without the Trump name. “There is no acrimony between the Trump family and me,” wrote Young, who said he had a relationship of almost two decades with the US president’s family. “It’s pure business,” he added.
The planned complex included a six-star hotel that would occupy approximately a third of the property, in addition to 270 luxury apartments, high-end shops, restaurants, a beach club and a swimming pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Altus had also assured that the development would generate around 500 jobs during the construction phase and another 500 permanent jobs once completed.
The project never advanced in the urban planning procedures. The acting deputy mayor of the Gold Coast, Mark Hammel, had already warned in February that a new formal application had not yet been submitted to the city council to authorize the construction of the skyscraper.
