New Rochelle Trump building residents fight over whether to keep name

The board of Trump Plaza New Rochelle dropped the Trump Organization as the building’s property manager three years ago, then in 2022 asked the 194 unit owners to vote on dropping the Trump name. Most favored a rebrand, but the election didn’t hit the required supermajority. That led the board to launch a second vote, infuriating a group of residents who are fighting tooth-and-nail to continue living under the banner of the politically divisive 45th president.

Relationships in the hallways have turned icy, some say. “The mood in the building feels like when your parents are getting divorced,” said one renter, Paul K., who spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld because he’s trying to stay out of the fray.

On the one side is former board member Rudy Southwell: “We all bought into the building with the Trump name because it denotes luxury even with all the political issues. To me it’s financially sound to keep the name, because people will get over today’s news cycle, but this building will stand for years.”

On the other side: Current board president Greg Root, pushing for a “neutral name.”

Owners are being asked to cast ballots on re-christening the building for its address, One Seventy Five Huguenot Condominium. Voting began in January and results will be announced when a supermajority is reached, or when the vote expires next year.

Michael Marrero, a unit owner and board member, said the building is split “evenly.” But Root maintains that those campaigning against change are merely a “small but vocal minority” he alleges is “spreading misinformation, false allegations and conspiracy theories.”

Each side accuses the other of being driven by politics. Root, however, argues that the association with the twice-impeached president is hurting property values, citing an analysis the board conducted from news stories and real estate data.

“Based on market analysis, not politics, it is in the financial best interest of the unit owners,” he said.

The condo board in New Rochelle, a city of roughly 82,000 about 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan where almost 56 percent of registered voters are Democrats, is not the first to try to take down the former president’s name; buildings in Stamford, Toronto, Manhattan and Panama have done so since he stepped into politics. Most revamps have been prompted by concerns the Trump link was dinging property values.

Elsewhere in Westchester County, which includes New Rochelle, different Trump-branded buildings have come to different decisions. Yorktown’s Trump Park Residences kept the name, and White Plains’ former Trump Tower at City Center rebranded as the Tower at City Place, according to the Journal News.

Inside the New Rochelle condo, the idea of prying the platinum letters off the high-rise has led to a battle reminiscent of recent U.S. elections. The group fiercely committed to the Trump name has created PowerPoint presentations and fliers of their own, alleging they are being censored, the vote is rigged and the board is breaking its bylaws. The board adamantly denies those claims and an unaffiliated attorney who practices condo law told The Washington Post the voting process appears compliant with the bylaws.

The saga roiling Trump Plaza New Rochelle shows how the former president’s rise to the White House, his contentious term and the barrage of legal cases that followed have altered his brand. Once a name that connoted business savvy, it now is a reminder for some of the country’s divisive politics, particularly after the Jan. 6, 2021 assault Trump’s supporters launched on the U.S. Capitol. A Q&A circulated by the Trump Plaza board referenced “the events of January 6th as well as multiple criminal investigations and indictments.”

The Trump Organization, which did not respond to The Post’s request for comment, still lists the building in its online portfolio.

A boutique property management company, AKAM, was chosen by the board to manage the building in September 2021. It has “no involvement in the naming of buildings,” spokeswoman Christine Da Silva said.

When the vista-altering tower opened in 2007, Trump himself came to town. Speaking to a cheering crowd, he called the event a milestone in “the renaissance of New Rochelle,” according to the New York Times.

Selling points of the 40-story building include floor-to-ceiling windows, an indoor pool and a 24-hour doorman.

Currently, two-bedroom units are available to purchase between $550,000 and $725,000 and rent at $4,000 per month, according to the real estate company Compass, which does not list the property as Trump Plaza New Rochelle, but as 175 Huguenot St.

A decade after the building opened, some residents in the city of New Rochelle called for the Trump brand to be scrubbed. A 2017 Change.org petition stated that “the name Trump is synonymous with racism, misogyny, and xenophobia” and called on supporters to tell the condo board “that we do not want our city’s skyline dominated by this man’s name.”

The petition, which had no affiliation with the condo board, drew only 91 supporters.

Years later, in 2021, the board fired the Trump Organization as its management company and followed up the next year with an election on whether to remove “Trump” from the building and call it The Plaza New Rochelle. Seventy-five percent of owners voted; of those, 70 percent were in favor of the change, according to the board.

But bylaws require that at least 66.67 percent of all owners vote to either keep or change the name — and although turnout was the highest in the building’s history, the vote didn’t hit that mark. Root said over a third of owners do not reside in the building, generally leasing out their units, and claimed they are difficult to engage in a timely manner.

Some thought that was the end of it — until this year, when the board tried again.

Sarah Wise, who bought into Trump Plaza 12 years ago, welcomes a renaming because she does not want to be associated with Trump. “His reputation, even before his presidential run, was less than admirable,” she said.

The condo board argues the Trump tie is shrinking their buyer pool.

“In the past, the name or brand ‘Trump’ was associated with luxury real estate. Following Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the name, Trump, became associated with politics before real estate,” said a Q&A distributed by the board. Citing an analysis board members conducted using data from a New York real estate company, the board claims that “Trump no longer means luxury real estate to most New Yorkers.”

Compared to Trump Plaza, the board analysis said properties in Stamford and White Plains that ditched the Trump name are seeing a faster rate of appreciation on sales prices per square foot.

M. Lori Morrow, a longtime New Rochelle real estate agent, told The Post that “having anyone’s name attached to a building could reduce the buyer pool based on how they react to the public persona attached to the name.”

Of the almost 47,000 registered voters in New Rochelle in 2024, about 26,000 are Democrats and roughly 7,500 are Republican, according to the Westchester County Board of Elections.

Residents in the keep-the-name camp insist that the Trump name still denotes luxury and a good investment opportunity.

“I moved here because of Trump’s name,” said unit owner Rubin Zhang. “Everyone knows where I live when I say Trump Plaza and I love it.”

Those who want to keep the Trump association insist it comes down to more than just the brand. Several told The Post they are troubled by the way the vote is being carried out, alleging that a power-hungry board is rigging a democratic system out of blind hate for the former president.

“We have no problem if the Trump name is removed legitimately,” said Monserrate Fisher, a unit owner. “But the 2022 vote showed that it’s not what unit owners voted for, and the Board can’t just keep putting the vote back on the table until they get what they want.”

Southwell said he’s so concerned about alleged vote rigging that he has not cast a ballot. Fliers distributed by some who want to keep the name urge residents: “DON’T VOTE.”

Members of the condo board said they are conducting the vote with unprecedented levels of transparency and have explained the process countless times.

The board retained an independent voting administration company, EZ Election Solutions, that specializes in unit owner and shareholder voting for condominiums and co-ops, then invited people to cast ballots beginning in January.

The plan was to announce results in February, but a supermajority hadn’t been reached by then, so the vote was extended to April — and then again to June.

James Woods, a partner with the New York law firm Woods Lonergan PLLC who practices condo law and is not involved in Trump Plaza New Rochelle, told The Post that “the vote appears to be compliant with the bylaws and the law.” He added that the board is empowered to adjourn the meeting and reconvene at a future date “to give all members of the community an opportunity to be heard and to vote.”

The board’s assurances have not been persuasive to everyone, and many residents complain the political split has poisoned relationships in the building. Some in the keep-the-name camp, complaining of being censored on the building’s virtual message board, have resorted to slipping fliers into units.

At the height of the chaos, some residents claim a nasty scene played out between a pro-Trump faction and the board president.

One January evening, Theresa Ferraro and a handful of others set out to distribute fliers accusing the condo board of flouting its bylaws. Suddenly, they came face-to-face with the board president.

They had just slid a flier under his door when Root came into the hallway, calling them fascists and accusing them of peddling misinformation, according to Ferraro and a complaint letter she and four others later sent to the board. A heated discussion about the vote ensued and the longtime resident remembers cussing Root out, just as the elevator doors began closing, like “a scene out of a film.”

Root called Ferraro’s account “a false accusation that I will not dignify with any further comment.”

He described those who want to keep the 45th president’s name on the building as “dissenters.”

“The dissenters are very passionate about Trump,” he said. “That passion has clouded their reason and their ability to see the situation from both points of view.”