MOSCOW, Jan. 23 -- Moscow's top planning official says the city is close to a deal with flamboyant U.S. real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump to rebuild a hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Moscow First Deputy Premier Vladimir Resin tells the Interfax news agency Thursday he and Trump's representatives have 'practically reached an agreement' on a project to renovate the Stalin-era Hotel Moskva.
A preliminary agreement on poential investments was reached last November after the city approached Trump, and Resin says Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is studying a Trump proposal to rebuild the hulking Moskva within 18 months. The gray stone hotel squats catty-corner to the Kremlin on a square that is being rebuilt under Luzhkov's grandiose plans for the Russian capital's 850th birthday celebration later this year. Trump has also proposed a renovation of the 30-year-old Hotel Rossiya, a gargantuan building with more than 3,000 rooms that Muscovites recently voted among the top five architectural eyesores in the city. Analysts say the cost of rebuilding the aging Moscow landmarks into 5-star hotels could total more than $350,000 per room, and some have expressed doubts the Trump deals will make it past the planning stages. ---
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