Jared’s White House Move ‘Crushed’ Kushners’ Deal For Troubled Manhattan Tower

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

By Daniel J. Solomon September 14, 2017

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Jared Kushner’s new gig at the White House has stymied his family’s effort to find a partner to redevelop their money-pit office tower headquarters in midtown Manhattan, according to a report in The Washington Post.

Kushner Companies, the family-owned real estate firm, has been coming up short in finding a business willing to work together to transform the Fifth Avenue skyscraper into a taller and more profitable mixed-use commercial and residential building.

Jared Kushner’s appointment as White House senior adviser has also scared potential investors – afraid they might get caught up in conflict of interest scrutiny. Before the election, the company had been talks with Russian and Chinese firms – arrangements that fell through in the aftermath of a Trump victory.

“They were crushed by this,” Thomas Barrack, a family friend and billionaire, told the Washington Post. “Just about completely chilled the market, and [potential investors] just said, ‘No way — can’t be associated with any appearances of conflict of interest,’ even though there was none.”

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.