Once again the use of the Donald Trump name has gotten a developer in trouble. Earlier this year angry investors sued Donald Trump and Los Angeles developer Irongate Wilshire over the failure of the Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico. Now some of the buyers at the new Trump International Hotel & Tower Waikiki Beach Walk have filed a lawsuit looking to get out of their sales contracts. Once again they said that Irongate misrepresented Donald Trump's role in one of their projects. The sellers claim that Irongate said in 2006 that Donald Trump was a co-developer of the 38-story project but that the developer had only licensed the Trump name. The lawsuit alleges that Irongate concealed the terms of the license. The popular project set records in 2006 when sales opened and the units sold out in a single day with units selling for millions of dollars.

The lawsuit says that the buyers were only told right before final deposits were due that the project was Trump in name only. This led to concerns about the worth of the real estate if Trump pulls his name from the project. The AP reports that the lawsuit will be amended to add more buyers. The Trump name was also involved in a similar lawsuit in Florida. Trump is not named in these lawsuits but certainly they must bolster his belief in the value of his name and brand.

One of Waikiki's most recognizable hotels will no longer be open for guests. The Y-shaped Ilikai hotel on Waikiki Beach (shown above, hotel not pictured) opened in 1964 but came to national attention in the 1970s when it used in the opening sequence of the "Hawaii Five-0" television show. But now the hotel has closed because its new owners were losing several hundred thousand dollars a month.

In its nearly five decades the 30-story Ilikai has hosted U.S. Presidents and celebrities, especially during its 1960s and 1970s heyday when stars like Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder and Lucillle Ball visited. But the hotel has fallen on hard times recently. New York-based iStar Financial Inc. bought the hotel for $51 million at a foreclosure auction in May and has decided it was too expensive to keep the hotel open. The move puts around 75 employees out of business. There were 203 hotel rooms in the 1,000-unit hotel-condo-timeshare property and guests staying at the hotel at the time of closure were relocated elsewhere. Operations related to the condo units are not affected. The hotel was an 800-room hotel operation just a few years ago before it was sold off into time share chunks.

Employees have said their tearful goodbyes but are holding out hope that the new owner will reopen the Ilikai with the same union crew. On the day before the closure workers rallied to save their jobs. Hawaii has seen many of its tourism jobs affected as hotel occupancy rates have plummeted. Recently the Hawaii Tourism Authority unveiled a new initiative aimed at boosting short-term travel to Hawaii by focusing on courting visitors from Japan.

UPDATE: The AP is reporting that the four dozen employees of the Ilikai hotel got their jobs back on Friday when their labor union and the property's new owner struck a new deal. Those employees that won't be rehired will receive severance packages.

Being the peak of summer it's also the peak of surfing season in most places, and for those who love the sport and just can't seem to get enough the answer might be to bring a surfboard into the house with you in the form of a coffee table. The "Endless Wave" is a table made of a real surfboard perched on top of a wave-shaped pedestal. It does, perhaps a little surprisingly, come across looking very classy and stylish. There are several color options available (or they can custom color one for you) and two different styles to choose from -- the Malibu and the Waikiki. $1800

Via Forbes

We knew that Hawaii was hot but Donald Trump proved just how toasty the real estate market really is there when it comes to condos. The Trump International Hotel & Tower Waikiki Beach Walk has set a world record for the amount of residential property (by dollar and unit volume) sold in one development on a single day. The total was over $700 million and by the end of the first day of a planned two-day sales event, all of the 464 hotel suites and residences were sold.

Buyers came from around the world but Japanese buyers made up the largest group of buyers, picking up units priced from the mid-$400,000's for a studio suite, to over $9 million for a three bedroom penthouse. Purchasers will have to wait until 2009 to take ownership of their new condos which will also have access to a library, wine cellar, lobby bar, infinity edge pool and 24-hour maid and concierge services.

Braden Keil at the NY Post reports that Donald Trump, daughter Ivanka and son Donald Trump Jr. are creating a new co-tel in Soho. The 45-floor tower will be built at 246 Spring and will be one of the projects offered to the winner of tonight's "The Apprentice" finale. The Trump International Hotel & Tower SoHo  will have more than 400 hotel condo rooms and suites, a spa and a high-end restaurant as well as retail space. The hotel will have 360-degree views from the 12th floor and up.

The winner of "The Apprentice" will get to choose between this tower and a project in Waikiki, a  five-star $400 million co-tel complex that will have 460 units, restaurants and bars. Hmm, a year in Hawaii or a year in New York...I love NYC but I'd go for the Aloha option.