The developer of the controversial proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero insists that the project is proceeding as planned.
“It is untrue that the community center known as Park51 in lower Manhattan is being moved,” said Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the project, in a statement released Thursday. “The project will proceed as planned. What is being reported in the media today is a falsehood.”
Mr. El-Gamal, founder of SoHo Properties, is one of eight investors who paid $4.8 million for a building two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The statement came following reports that real estate mogul Donald Trump was offering to buy one investor’s stake in the property.
In a letter to Hisham Elzanaty, an Egyptian-born Long Island businessman and a major investor in the project, Mr. Trump offered to buy his stake for 25% more than Mr. Elzanaty paid for it.
“I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one [ because it is not ] but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse,” Mr. Trump wrote in the letter.
In the letter, Mr. Trump said any agreement would require that a mosque be built at least five blocks from the former World Trade Center site.
Wolodymyr Starosolsky, Mr. Elzanaty’s attorney, said his client was insulted by the letter.
“This letter looks like it was written by a publicist rather than by a serious business man,” Mr. Starosolsky said in a phone interview from his office, with Mr. Elzanaty present. “It suggests to me that Mr. Trump sees this as an opportunity to reclaim some of the limelight and luster that he has been losing.”
Mr. Starosolsky said the investors in the property were also offered just under $20 million by two other individuals on Thursday.
Howard Rubenstein, a publicist for Mr. Trump, responded to Mr. Elzanaty’s attorney, saying, “Donald Trump’s offer was a very serious one and he will not make any further comment this evening.”
The proposal to build the 13-center community center has sparked fierce opposition and support across the country, with elected officials, the families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks and activists weighing in.