Chicago : After nearly 11 years, Trump Tower almost sold out

With two condominiums sold in the past six days, the developer has only six of the original 486 units left to sell.
It has taken a long time to get to this point. The New York developer began selling condos for the riverside skyscraper way back in September 2003. No other active condo project in downtown Chicago has been in its marketing phase for that long.

“It's an incredible feat that we're proud of,” said Eric Trump, the developer's son and the Trump Organization's executive vice president of development and acquisitions. “In Chicago, you heard of other projects that were going to be built and they were going to be the greatest buildings in the world, but we sat down and actually built our project as promised.”

There have been bumps in the road. In 2007, Donald Trump cancelled early-buyer deals, allowing the organization to sell condos at new, higher prices. The next year, after sales had languished for about two years, Mr. Trump needed two extensions on the building's $640 million construction loan.

Three of the developer's six remaining units at the Trump International Hotel & Tower are not being actively marketed. They are being used as the sales center and model and will be put on the market when others have sold, said Sara Martens, senior vice president of the Trump Organization and head of sales at the 96-story tower.

“We're not in a hurry to get rid of the last inventory, but the sales run is coming to an end,” said Ms. Martens, who has been selling in the building for seven years. The slowest point was in 2011, she said, “but sales kicked up in 2012, and it's been good since then.”

The high-rise at 401 N. Wabash Ave. also includes 339 hotel condos, most of them owned by Donald Trump himself. Workers recently began installing the word TRUMP on the riverfront side of the building, in capital letters that are to be backlit.

The three units the developer has for sale are:
• A 3,400-square-foot two-bedroom on the 38th floor, facing east over the river and priced at $3 million.
• A 2,022-square-foot two-bedroom on the 52nd floor, facing north over the River North neighborhood, for $1.59 million.
• The 14,000-square-foot penthouse on the 89th floor that has been for sale at $32 million since mid-2012.