Bloomberg: Trump Pulls Out of $250 Mln Tower Plan in Black Sea Resort

United States President-Elect Donald Trump’s company has pulled out of a proposed $250-million tower project in Batumi, Bloomberg reports.

“The Trump Organization and its local partner in Georgia, the Silk Road Group, said in a joint e-mailed statement that they have decided to formally end the development of Trump Tower, Batumi,” the article reads.

The project, a 47-story residential condominium, was announced in Batumi in 2012 by Trump and then-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Silk Road said it will go ahead on its own with a luxury tower in the city, once dubbed the Monte Carlo of the Caucasus by Trump.

Bloomberg reports that Trump’s organization announced last month it was ending real estate projects in Brazil and Azerbaijan, in what Executive Vice President Alan Garten described as “housecleaning” ahead of Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

“Political opponents have said his business interests could prejudice U.S. foreign policy - especially in the former Soviet Union, given Trump’s professed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Bloomberg says.

The Trump Tower in Batumi was widely assumed to have been shelved when Saakashvili lost power in 2013 and was later stripped of his Georgian citizenship. But Giorgi Ramishvili, Silk Road’s founder, said a month ago that it was still on track.

“Ramishvili, contacted by phone, didn’t elaborate on why it’s been abandoned now, and also declined to comment on whether he’ll be attending Trump’s inauguration,” the article reads.

By Thea Morrison

Photo: Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, left, and Donald Trump shake hands during a press conference, on March 10, 2011.

Source: Bloomberg.com