Kushner Companies, the real estate firm formerly headed by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said it has dropped out of talks to redevelop its flagship New York office tower with China’s Anbang Insurance Group.
The two companies, which had been in advanced talks according to media reports, both agreed to end the discussions about redeveloping a 60-year-old office tower that is steps away from St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center.
“Kushner Companies is no longer in discussions with Anbang about 666 Fifth Avenue’s potential redevelopment, and our firms have mutually agreed to end talks regarding the property,” a spokesman for Kushner said.
Plans are still ongoing with other investors to redevelop the 39-story aluminum-clad building that fronts Fifth Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan, the spokesman said.
“Kushner Companies remains in active, advanced negotiations around 666 Fifth Avenue with a number of potential investors,” he said.
Kushner Cos was headed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, until earlier this year when his interest in the company was sold to a family trust.
Concerns had been raised about a conflict of interest given Kushner’s role as an adviser to Trump.
Plans call for stripping the building down to its steel columns and adding about 40 floors in a project that was designed by Zaha Hadid, a Pritzker Prize award winner for architecture, before she died last year, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.
News of Kushner and Anbang ending talks was first reported by the New York Post.