The Trump Tower Tbilisi project—a complex of buildings slated for construction on the site of the former hippodrome in the Saburtalo district—was unveiled in Tbilisi. Representatives from the development companies and Georgian officials, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, attended the event.
According to the head of government, the project will attract over $2 billion in investment. The total floor area of the buildings will span 600,000 square meters, with the tower itself rising 282 meters and comprising 62 stories.
Eric Trump, Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization and son of U.S. President Donald Trump, joined the presentation via video link.
"I look forward to visiting Georgia. Many Georgians live in America, and they are the warmest people. It is truly wonderful that such affection exists between these two countries, and this lends special significance to our relationship," he emphasized in his address.
Earlier, some Georgian media outlets had reported that Eric Trump would attend the event in person.
The project’s lead developers are the Georgian companies Invia and Archi. The latter is owned by Ilia Tsulaia, a former Member of Parliament representing the Georgian Dream party. The Trump Organization will not be directly involved in construction; instead, it will license the use of the Trump name and brand. The company will not own the building itself.
This is not the first attempt to realize a Trump Tower project in Georgia. In 2012, a plan for a 47-story building in Batumi was unveiled. The country's then-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, helped promote the project, and Donald Trump—prior to his active involvement in politics—visited Batumi to meet with him. However, the project was halted following the Georgian Dream party's election victory and Bidzina Ivanishvili's rise to power. Ivanishvili called it a "stunt" by Trump and Saakashvili. The president's opponents pointed out that the Trump Organization did not invest its own funds in the construction but merely granted a local developer the right to use the Trump name. On this basis, the project was criticized as a government PR initiative.
