Dan's Papers - April 11, 2008

I don't know if you have been following this story, but Donald Trump is involved in a plan to put a beautiful high-end restaurant facing the ocean at Jones Beach. It would have the Trump name on it. And if approved and built, would be just about the most expensive place to eat on Long Island. A dinner there could easily cost $300.

Trump has been out here to the Hamptons but has not been a regular. Some years ago, he tried to develop a beautiful old mansion with vast grounds in Sebonac into a private golf course with condominiums. He walked away from that plan in the end after flack from the zoning people and the general public. Today it is the exclusive Sebonack Golf Club, but there are no condominiums.

In any case, what has gone on at Jones Beach is a really good example of how things go back and forth between a builder and a community and how sometimes if you overlook something it can be a huge stumbling block.

The project, headed up by Trump and Steve Carl, who is a Long Island catering hall legend, was proposed to be built at the site of a decrepit and abandoned oceanfront restaurant at Jones Beach - which is a State Park - that had never had any success. I'm not sure of this, but I believe that restaurant was about 50,000-square-feet in size, which included a single ground floor and an 18,000-square-foot basement.

Trump and Carl proposed a 75,000-square-foot project that would include a 26,100-square-foot basement. I think Trump assumed that since there was a basement already there, he could have a basement, or even one a bit larger, even though rules passed since the old place was built that made it illegal to build a basement in a flood plain, which is where this is. Structures in illegal locations often get approved if they were there before laws are passed. They are grandfathered in.

In many ways, although debate went back and forth about this project with some in favor and some opposed, there was really a kind of love affair about this project. At Jones Beach State Park there are plenty of places to get things to eat if you don't want to spend $300 for a white glove dinner. And this was an abandoned building. Trump may be a self-promoter, but he is also a billionaire and a legend. It seemed to many that such a place at this oceanfront beach and park would be a great marriage between two legends, Donald Trump and the late Robert Moses, founder of Jones Beach.

However, the State of New York, which has its zoning people up in Westchester, turned the project down. And the problem was that basement. Things may be grandfathered in. But this law was passed because of the new possibility of high seas washing up over the dunes someday. There would be people working in that basement. It would consist of a kitchen, a laundry room, a garbage room, a utility room and storage. And this law involved safety.

"You can't build a basement there, period," said one official. He might have added, "Even if you're Donald Trump," but he didn't.

Back at the drawing board, Trump and Carl concluded that they really needed that basement. They modified the plan a bit. And then they tried, and succeeded, in getting the jurisdiction for the zoning decision transferred to Long Island. (Was Westchester jealous? Was that it?)

It wasn't. The zoning people on Long Island just came to the same conclusion. No matter who you are, you could not build a basement on that spot.

Two weeks ago, Trump and Carl came back with a new plan. And it didn't have a basement. But, because there was stuff in the basement and they needed that square footage for it all, they'd have to build the square footage somewhere else. It would be up. They proposed a second floor.

Of course, with a second floor it meant that second floor would have the best view. And so they reconfigured how they would do the inside. The second floor would have the banquet hall, the ceremony room, the deck and the bridal suite, which I believe means that there would be a place for the bride and groom to have their wedding night. Hmm! As for the ground floor, it would have the restaurant and outdoor patio and kitchen and other utility areas.

Though the square footage for the new project is about 5% smaller than the earlier proposal with the basement, it does mean that what you see above ground will be taller. But looking at the plans, it does look much better proportioned as a two-story building. And two stories is only two stories after all. It rises to 43-feet-high instead of 28-feet-high.

At this point, it seems to me that what is left is a lot of posturing and politics. The zoning people will say it has to be smaller. Trump and Carl will make it smaller, but not as much smaller as the zoning people want. A lawsuit that Trump filed against the zoning people for having turned him down where there was a basement grandfathered in will probably be dropped. And we will move on.

But maybe not. Just the other day Trump and Carl filed a $500 million lawsuit against the State of New York for deception and a loss of business.