Donald Trump today sent a letter to the developer of the Cordoba House, offering to buy the building proposed for the downtown Manhattan Islamic center for 25 percent more than the developer paid for it.
“I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse,” Trump said in a letter, according to Bloomberg.
The developer, however, rejected the offer through his lawyer, who said Trump’s offer is “just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight.”
Trump seems to have been responding to an Associated Press interview in which one of the developers, Hisham Elzanaty, said he’d be willing to sell.
“Develop it, raze it, sell it,” he said.
But Elznaty said he’d be willing to sell for $18 to $20 million — four times what he paid.
He also said he’s already gotten offers for three times what he paid. It would seem an offer of 125%, then, isn’t quite enough.
