The last sign bearing the Trump family name was taken off of his former SoHo hotel early Thursday morning – ending the family’s control over the building.
Trump SoHo, on Spring Street in Manhattan, has been renamed The Dominick Hotel after the street at its rear.
The decision to rebrand follows a string of properties in Toronto and Panama that are shaking the name because of the former real-estate mogul’s rise in politics.
An employee told the Washington Post that no employees will lose their jobs in the rebranding – there will just be new management.
And though the Trump Organization cut ties with the property in late November, the building’s past will likely play a role in coming investigations into the President’s ties with Russia.
The last sign bearing the Trump family name was taken off of his former SoHo hotel early Thursday morning – ending the family’s control over the building. Pictured above is the now signless building Thursday morning
Trump SoHo, on Spring Street in Manhattan, has been renamed the Dominick Hotel after the street at it’s rear
An employee told the Washington Post that no employees will lose their jobs in the rebranding – there will just be new management. Pictured is the now signless building Thursday morning
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And though the Trump Organization cut ties with the property in late November, the building’s past will likely play a role in coming investigations into the President’s ties with Russia. He is pictured on Wednesday after the Tax Bill was passed in the House
The organization initially relinquished control of the hotel because clients were starting to look elsewhere, not wanting to stay there because of its connection with the tumultuous president.
‘Everything Trump was basically taken off today, even our Wi-Fi,’ Kevin Sinnot, a 28-year-old hotel guest from Australia told the New York Daily News.
He said he was able to book a room for he and his fiancee at a discount because of low demand.
But regardless he said he’s glad the name was changed. ‘You don’t like telling your mates you stayed at the Trump,’ he told the Daily News.
Many of Trump’s properties have suffered from the president’s controversial political viewpoints – but none more than Trump SoHo.
Earlier this year the Japanese-fusion eatery Koi had to close after experiencing a decline in diners. A former employee explained how bad reservations had gotten by saying: ‘The Kardashians stopped coming.’
Donald Trump first announced the New York project 11 years ago on his television show The Apprentice.
It opened in 2010, and was the first of his properties to be controlled by his children.
The 46-story skyscraper has never been the success Trump hoped it would be. From the beginning of development the project was met with protesters chanting ‘Dump the Trump’ and ‘Don’t comb over here’, claiming the massive structure would break zoning rules.
The building also served as the site of partisan protests when Trump announced his candidacy for president.
The hotel drew international attention earlier this year due to alleged money laundering ties from Russian and Kazakh oligarchs.
In 2007 the hotel’s construction was put on hold because one of Trump’s partners in the project, Felix Sater, who worked for the Bayrock Development group, was revealed, stirring controversy.
Sater, who lived in Brooklyn and was born in Russia, was a contentious partner because he previously served jail time for stabbing a man with a margarita glass in the 1990s. He also at one point avoided prison for a stock scam by becoming a government witness.
According to financial records, Bayrock received millions for the Trump SoHo deal from an Icelandic Bank that many Russian elites use to get their money out of the country. Additionally, companies linked to Kazakh oligarchs Viktor Krapunov and Mukhtar Ablyazov bought apartments worth more than $3million in the building.
Krahpunov and Ablyazov claim they are being politically persecuted after being convicted in Kazakhstan of embezzling billions of dollars from a state bank in property and ventures around the world.
An ongoing federal court case filed by the country in Manhattan accuses them of putting $40million into New York projects.
Felix Sater is cooperating with an international money laundering probe against Kazakhstan – according to the Financial Times.
He will also reportedly be interviewed by Congress about his alleged ties to the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Emails from late 2015 between Sater and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen speak about a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow. These emails, first reported by the New York Times, were exchanged during the presidential primary campaign.
In the emails Sater tells Cohen ‘get putin on this program and we will get Donald elected.’
He also wrote: ‘Our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it.’
A letter of intent was signed for the Trump Moscow Project , but the Trump Orgation didn’t move forward with plans, according to Cohen.
He said Sater was ‘prone to salesmanship.’
Trump SoHo has also been the subject of lawsuits from condo buyers who said Ivanka Trump misled them when she told media in 2008 that 60 percent of the united had been sold.
In reality only 15 percent of the building’s units had been sold.
The case ended in a settlement and a criminal probe was opened into Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr over their misleading statements.
Manhattan DIstrict Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr ended up dropping the case after he was visited by the Trump family attorney Marc Kasowitz in 2012.
Vance said he didn’t have enough evidence to pursue charges against the siblings and denied any wrongdoing in his decision to drop it.
But he also returned a $31,000 donation from Kasowitz after his involvement in the case was revealed.
Stays at luxury Trump hotels across the country have been drastically marked down over the progression of the past few years – analysis of rates at 13 properties has revealed.
The biggest slash came at the Las Vegas location where rates dropped from $844 to $314 at the hotel on the Las Vegas strip.
The second-biggest drop was at Trump Turnberry, a luxurious golf property Trump visited during the campaign.
Trump’s luxury hotel in Washington, D.C. – the subject of a lawsuit that argues Trump is violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause by accepting foreign revenue paid by guests – saw a drop of 52 percent.
By ABIGAIL MILLER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
He’s fired! Final Trump SoHo signs come down at newly christened The Dominick Hotel in Manhattan
