Hotel complex in location of bombed General Staff building to be named Trump Tower (PHOTO)

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, his son-in-law Jared Kushner “is embarking on a business venture overseas that will bear a name near to home: Trump,” writes Bloomberg.

Affinity Partners, the investment firm Kushner founded after leaving the White House, and Emirati billionaire Mohamed Alabbar will develop a luxury hotel and apartment complex in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, on the site of the former Yugoslav defense ministry, the news agency reports.

As they write, Trump considered a similar idea before running for president in 2016.

“We talked with several brands in the past year” about the hotel, Kushner said in an interview with Bloomberg.

After a local push for the Trump name, Kushner said he discussed it with Eric Trump, his brother-in-law and executive vice president at the Trump Organization, and they settled on the licensing deal.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former U.S. president Donald Trump presented the project of the hotel which is supposed to be built in the location of the General Staff building to the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, in Belgrade in June.

As The New York Times wrote, Jared Kushner’s company will lease the space of the bombed General Staff building in Belgrade for 99 years without a compensation and build a luxury hotel and apartment complex, as well as a memorial site and a museum in that location.

The investment, as said, is worth USD 500 million, and according to the proposed agreement, Serbia should get 22% of the profit.

The agreement on the renovation of the complex of the former Yugoslav Federal Secretariat for National Defense (SSNO) was signed in May by the minister of construction, transport and infrastructure of Serbia, Goran Vesic, and the company Affinity Global Development.

The project in Belgrade already has its website, which shows what the planned buildings will look like.

Government deletes General Staff building from cultural goods register, despite opposition from numerous organizations

In November last year, the Government of Serbia adopted the decision on the removal of the status of cultural goods for the buildings of the General Staff and the Defense Ministry in Belgrade.

Among others, a group of professors and associates of the faculties of philosophy and architecture at the University of Belgrade, the Union of Architects of Serbia and the International Association of Art Critics AICA have opposed this decision.

The Executive Board of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA) has also requested for the General Staff and Defense Ministry complex to be categorized so that it has the status of a cultural good of extreme importance for Serbia.

I. Z.

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