Vera Coking house

The Vera Coking house was a boarding house owned by a retired homeowner in Atlantic City, New Jersey that was the focus of an eminent domain case involving Donald Trump.

History
Coking house at 127 S Columbia Pl, between the steel framework of the planned Penthouse Casino; photographed by Jack Boucher for Historic American Buildings Survey, c.1991

In 1961, Vera Coking and her husband bought the property at 127 South Columbia Place as a summertime retreat for $20,000.[1]

In the 1970s, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione offered Coking $1 million ($5 million in 2023)[2] for her property in order to build the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino. She declined the offer, and Guccione started construction of the hotel-casino in 1978 around the Coking house, but ran out of money in 1980 and construction stopped. The steel framework structure was finally torn down in 1993.[3]

In 1993, Donald Trump bought several lots around his Atlantic City casino and hotel, intending to build a parking lot designed for limousines.[4] Coking, who had lived in her house at that time for 32 years, refused to sell. As a result, the city condemned her house, using the power of eminent domain. She was offered $251,000,[5] a quarter of what she was offered by Guccione 10 years earlier.

With the assistance of the Institute for Justice, Coking fought the local authorities and eventually prevailed.[6] Superior Court Judge Richard Williams ruled that because there were "no limits" on what Trump could do with the property, the plan to take Coking's property did not meet the test of law. But Williams' ruling did not reject the practice of using eminent domain to take private property from one individual and transferring it to another, which was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Kelo v. City of New London.

Two other properties that prevailed against eminent domain eventually did sell: Sabatini's restaurant received $2.1 million and a pawnshop sold for $1.6 million. Their lots became part of a large lawn flanking a taxi stand for Trump's casino.[1][7] Coking remained in her house until 2010, when she moved to a retirement home in the San Francisco Bay Area near her daughter and grandchildren.

Property records show that on June 2, 2010, Coking transferred ownership of the house to her daughter, who put it on the market in 2011 with an initial asking price of $5 million.[1][8] By September 2013, the price had been reduced to $1 million.[9]

The property was finally sold for $583,000 in an auction on July 31, 2014.[10] The buyer was Carl Icahn, who held the debt on Trump Entertainment, owner of Trump Plaza. He subsequently demolished the house on November 19, 2014.[11] Neither the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority nor the owners of Trump Plaza expressed any interest in the auction.[1]

The adjacent Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, the property for which Trump wanted Coking's property to begin with, closed in September 2014 for lack of business and was demolished on February 17, 2021.[12][13][14]

See also

References
  1. Matt A.V. Chaban (July 21, 2014). "A Homeowner’s Refusal to Cash Out in a Gambling Town Proves Costly". The New York Times. Retrieved July 24, 2014.
  2. "Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator". Bureau of Labor Statistics. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  3. "Public Power, Private Gain: The Abuse of Eminent Domain". Institute for Justice. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
  4. " IN BRIEF; Follow-Ups: Judge Rejects Property Seizure". The New York Times, July 26, 1998. Accessed December 5, 2007.
  5. Nelson, I. Rose (1998). "Court Condemns Casino Condemnations". The Gambling and the Law. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
  6. Herszenhorn, David M. (July 21, 1998). "Widowed Homeowner Foils Trump in Atlantic City", The New York Times. Accessed December 5, 2007.
  7. "Penthouse Casino.jpg". The Press of Atlantic City. Retrieved November 20, 2015.
  8. Wittkowski, Donald (August 28, 2011). "Empty Atlantic City boarding home near casinos selling for $5 million". The Press of Atlantic City. Accessed August 28, 2011.
  9. Cohen, Lauren (September 24, 2013). "Asking price drops on house Vera Coking refused to sell to Trump". The Press of Atlantic City.
  10. Wittkowski, Donald (16 February 2016). "Coveted by developers, Atlantic City rooming house finally falls to wreckers". The Press of Atlantic City. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
  11. NBC10 Philadelphia (November 20, 2014). "Atlantic City House of Woman Who Heldout Against Donald Trump Comes Down". NBC10 (Philadelphia). Retrieved 16 February 2014
  12. "Trump Casino Implodes (Literally) — Marking the End of an Era in Atlantic City". Bloomberg.com. 17 February 2021.
  13. "Thousands out of work in Atlantic City as big casinos shut doors". Atlantic City News. 1 September 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2016.
  14. "What will happen at the Trump Plaza site once the building is demolished".
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