Word: panamas
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Donald Trump has never been accused of subtlety. So there is nothing retiring about the celebrity real-estate magnate's venture into Panama. His 70-floor sail-shaped Trump Ocean Club, under construction in Panama City's exclusive Punta Pacifica district, will be the largest and most expensive building ever built south of the Rio Grande. "Nothing like this has ever been attempted in Latin America," says head developer Roger Khafif, whose K Group construction firm is handling the $400 million project. "When you think of Sydney you think of the Opera House, when think of Paris you think...
...inaugurated by the end of the year, complete with luxury condos, a five-star hotel, six restaurants, a Las Vegas-style casino and a private yacht club on the nearby Isla Saboga. The project is 10-to-20 times more expensive than that of any other skyscraper in Panama City. It will be 20% bigger than the AOL-Time Warner building in New York City, Khafif says...
Khafif says Trump's name will help the country's image makeover. "Before it was Panama and Noriega," he explains, referring to Manuel Noriega, the notorious general who ruled the country from 1983 to 1989. "But now it will be Panama and Trump." Or at least he hopes so. "We bet $400 million on it," Khafif says. (From TIME's Archives: The Fall of Manuel Noriega...
...Khafif sounds proprietary about something with Trump's name on it, it's because the project was his idea in the first place. When the Colombian-born developer came up with the plans for the building in 2005, amid Panama City's real-estate explosion, he realized it was too big to be financed without a major-league brand name. Khafif knew that Trump had been in Panama in 2003 for the Miss Universe Pageant, so he asked a mutual friend to set up a meeting in New York. "I know the guy has an ego and likes pretty things...
...explosion in credit-card and home-mortgage debt before the recession tells us the demand that was there was never sustainable. This is why the President now talks about doubling exports over the next five years and the importance of passing trade agreements with countries like South Korea, Panama and Colombia. If we can't sell to ourselves, there is at least partial salvation in selling to others...