Donald Trump Offers to Buy NYC Mosque Site
Published: Thursday, 9 Sep 2010 | 4:52 PM ET By: Associated Press
Donald Trump is offering to buy out one of the major investors in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.
In a letter released Thursday by Trump's publicist, the real estate investor tells Hisham Elzanaty he would buy his stake in the lower Manhattan building for 25 percent more than whatever he paid.
"As part of the offer, it would be agreed that, if you or your representative were to build a mosque, it would be located at least five blocks further from the World Trade Center site," Trump wrote in the letter.
"This offer is for all cash with an immediate closing and is subject only to the finalization and signing of mutually acceptable documents."
Trump says he's making the offer not because he thinks the location is spectacular but because it would end "a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation." Click here for a copy of Trump's letter to Elzanaty.
It's unclear whether Elzanaty has total control over the property, which is owned by an eight-member investment group managed by Soho Properties.