The new permanent clubhouse for the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx was opened two years ahead of the stipulation for it in the contract with New York City that gave the Trump Organization the right to build the new course on a landfill. Given recent reports of declining rounds and revenues at that course and others in the Trump Organization portfolio, the moved-up date was seen as an effort to attract more visitors to the property.
While President Donald Trump was in Singapore on June 11th preparing to try to rid the world of the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Kim Jong Un, the Associated Press reported that his two sons were cutting the ribbon on a new clubhouse at the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx, New York, with the hopes that it would help to attract more visitors to the showcase property that has been one of many in the Trump Organization portfolio posting disappointing numbers recently.
The opening of the new permanent clubhouse was part of the contract the Trump Organization made with the city of New York to build the $127 million Ferry Point course on the site of a landfill. That agreement stated the clubhouse had to be completed by March 31, 2020, but its opening was expedited to try to inject new life into a property that saw rounds, and revenue, in the second year after it was opened in 2015 (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2017/06/rounds-dip-trump-golf-links-ferry-point/)
Data from the city of New York obtained in a freedom of information request by The Associated Press showed that revenue at the course fell 7 percent again in 2017, echoing trouble at a few of the Trump Organization’s other 17 courses throughout the world for which figures have been made public (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2018/05/presidency-doesnt-provide-boost-golf-income-trump/).
The Trump Organization’s 17 golf courses generated $221 million in revenue last year, according to the president’s latest financial disclosure report. A comparable figure from the year earlier is not available, but Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press that that number is up.
Eric Trump told the AP that one of the company’s biggest courses—the Doral in Miami, which generated $75 million in revenue last year—is doing especially well.
“The Doral is on fire,” he said.
Other publicly available figures paint a mixed picture, the AP reported.
Greens fees fell last year at Trump’s Los Angeles course, and his two Scottish resorts and one in Ireland posted losses in 2016, the latest year available. One of the Scottish courses and the Irish resort were at various times closed for business, so the numbers are not directly comparable to the year earlier, the AP noted.
Eric Trump said that the 2017 figures for the Scottish and Irish properties show vast improvement, though he would not elaborate.
“The courses are doing fantastic,” he said.
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