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Eric Baradat

The commercial real estate industry has ground nearly to a halt because of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a> shutdowns, forcing buyers and sellers of major properties, including President Trump’s company, to put their plans on hold.

The Trump Organization, which he still owns, has had to press pause on the proposed sale of its D.C. hotel lease because of the stock market collapse as potential buyers wait for banks and investors to return to normal operations.

The company’s sales representative, Jeffrey Davis of JLL, confirmed to The Washington Post that the proposed sale of Trump’s lease to the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion has been set aside as the industry recovers.

“We have toured only the most discerning buyers and are proud to be representing such an iconic asset,” he said. "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/trump-hotel-business/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Trump International Hotel</a>, Washington, D.C., is one of the finest hotels anywhere in the world and we look forward to working with the Trump Organization on finding the right fit once the industry is back up and running.”

Trump’s company, now run by his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, announced the planned sale in October and set a January deadline for initial bids. It is unclear how many companies are pursuing the lease, which Trump signed with the government before his election in 2016, although Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/05/trump-hotel-sheila-johnson/" target=_blank>was</a> among the bidders.

Trump’s clubs and hotels, including Mar-a-Lago, suffer from coronavirus fallout

As of Monday, seven of the Trump Organization’s 10 top-grossing properties were closed. Those that remained open were at a fraction of their usual capacity: Trump’s hotels in Chicago, New York and Washington had all closed their bars and restaurants in response to local orders.

The company has now laid off more than 550 workers at its hotels, according to government filings and people familiar with the properties. Occupancy at the D.C. hotel recently was about 5 percent, according to the union that represents workers there, and managers of the hotel have been peppering social media with promises of a comeback and messages thanking the few guests staying there.

The union said that 160 workers had been laid off there, although that did not account for the closure of the BLT Prime steakhouse, which is separately owned.

BLT’s owner, ESquared Hospitality, has not returned requests for comment. The Trump Organization also did not respond to a request for comment.

The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/27/congress-coronavirus-house-vote/" target=_blank>$2.2 trillion</a> economic stimulus bill signed by Trump last week contained a provision pressed by Democrats that prohibits Trump’s company from benefiting from a $450 billion pool of Treasury Department loans and investments. That pot of money is intended to keep struggling businesses afloat during the pandemic, but the company is eligible to benefit from tax changes as well as support its tenant partners receive.

Trump’s company is hardly alone in suffering from virus-related lockdowns that are preventing nearly all travelers from booking rooms and have closed thousands of retailers. Top hotel chains such as Marriott and Hilton have sent tens of thousands of workers home without pay as part of furlough programs. In Washington, a main Trump hotel competitor, the Four Seasons, informed the District government on March 20 that it was laying off 413 employees.

Congress to bail out firms that avoided taxes, regulations

How long the pandemic will shut down the economy and what effect it will have on the values of hotels, office buildings, shopping malls and other properties remains to be determined.

JLL, the firm that represents the Trump Organization, projects a commercial real estate slowdown that lasts at least through the first half of 2020. Other experts say that it could last much longer, further sidelining top-dollar sales like the Trump hotel lease.

“The comeback period for major purchases is going to extend well beyond this six-month period that we’re talking about," Spencer Levy, a senior economic adviser at CBRE, <a href="http://blog.naiop.org/2020/03/covid-19-qa-spencer-levy-americas-head-of-research-and-senior-economic-advisor-cbre/" target=_blank>told</a> NAIOP, a trade group for developers. "It might be a year before you get back to normal patterns.”

Of immediate concern is what commercial tenants, including companies renting office space and retailers renting storefronts, will do about paying the April rent. The United States has more than 1 million restaurants and other food service locations, supporting more than <a href="https://restaurant.org/covid19#info" target=_blank>15 million jobs</a>, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Scores of restaurants have already laid off workers because of the forced closures, contributing to the staggering 3.3 million unemployment <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/26/unemployment-claims-coronavirus-3-million/" target=_blank>claims</a> filed in a week earlier this month. Major retailers are also shedding workers en masse, as Macy’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/30/furloughs-bailout-coronavirus/" target=_blank>announced</a> Monday that it will furlough most of its 125,000 workers as a result of the closure of 775 stores. Kohl’s and the Gap announced furloughs of 80,000 each.

Dozens of companies lease office space from the Trump Organization at two New York City locations, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and 40 Wall Street. Trump’s company also has retail leases in New York and at some of his hotels and golf courses, such as the Japanese restaurant Sushi Nakazawa and Italian suit maker Brioni in the D.C. hotel.

Trump is also in the role of tenant at the D.C. hotel, which is in a building managed by the General Services Administration. His company pays the government $3 million in annual rent plus a share of any profits above a certain threshold (an amount the government has not disclosed).

According to the lease, his company is subject to interest payments, additional fees and ultimately termination if it stops making lease payments. Some disputes require mandatory mediation between the company and the government. Contracting and government ethics watchdogs have repeatedly questioned whether taxpayers are fairly represented in negotiations between Trump’s company and his government.

Administration officials say Trump has resigned from his business and is not involved in its day-to-day operations.

Congress to bail out firms that avoided taxes, safety regulations and spent billions boosting their stock

There are tax benefits in the stimulus package Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/03/27/congress-coronavirus-house-vote/" target=_blank>signed</a> into law last week for commercial real estate owners, which could provide the industry with as much as <a href="https://www.loopnet.com/learn/five-real-estate-takeaways-from-senate-approval-of-coronavirus-stimulus-/511170555/" target=_blank>$232 billion</a> in savings. Trump’s company stands to benefit from those provisions, as they weren’t subject to the blocking provision Senate Democrats inserted, prompting criticism from government ethics groups.

But it isn’t yet clear how or when the industry will bounce back. Colony Capital Chairman Thomas J. Barrack Jr., who chaired Trump’s inaugural committee, has <a href="https://medium.com/@tombarrackjr/preventing-covid-19-from-infecting-the-commercial-mortgage-market-e7444701745e" target="_blank">warned</a> of a second financial crisis if the coronavirus shutdown leads to a potential blockage in commercial lending.

Because of the spread of the coronavirus, Barrack <a href="https://medium.com/@tombarrackjr/unpacking-the-coronavirus-aid-relief-and-economic-security-act-cares-act-a605426dffa8" target="_blank">wrote</a>, “American businesses are unable to generate revenues from the ordinary course; consequently, America’s businesses are unable to make lease payments on the office, retail, and industrial buildings which they occupy."

Trump has not addressed the strains faced by commercial landlords including the Trump Organization or retailers that have been forced to shut down and now have rent coming due. But he was asked at a White House news conference Sunday what people ― meaning individual renters ― should do about paying their April rent.

“I will tell you, I think landlords are going to take it easy,” he said. “We may put out a statement on that. I think a lot of people that are owed money are going to take it easy. They don’t, sort of, have a choice. But a lot of concessions are made.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jonathan O'Connell is a reporter focused on investigations. He has covered economic development, commercial real estate and President Donald Trump's business. He joined The Post in 2010.

Jonathan O'Connell

Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2017.

Harvard University, B.A. in history, 2000.

David A. Fahrenthold is a reporter covering the Trump family and its business interests. He has been at The Washington Post since 2000, and previously covered Congress, the federal bureaucracy, the environment and the D.C. police.