Tevfik Arif went from working in the Soviet Kazakhstan’s public sector to leading a successful global luxury real estate company.
Turkish-Kazakh businessman and entrepreneur Tevfik Arif is the founder of Bayrock Group, the luxury real estate firm that developed the Trump SoHo project in New York City.
The building, which was completed in 2008, has become the Bayrock Group’s prime project when it comes to property development in the Big Apple.
With its 46 stories, the luxury condo-hotel complex in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo neighborhood stands as a testament to Tevfik Arif’s hard work and determination.
As the main developers of the Trump SoHo Tower, Bayrock Group assigned world-class architects and designers to create the unique and luxurious building.
Extraordinary inside and out
Trump SoHo was designed by Handel Architects, a prestigious New York City firm that has designed buildings all over the world.
Tevfik Arif and Bayrock Group assigned this company to design the luxury condo-hotel because of its impressive reputation and experience in designing luxury hotels.
Handel Architects has won several awards and is the company behind the September 11th National Memorial in New York City and the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington, D.C.
Additionally, Handel Architects are recognized as a leader in the field of design and architecture.
To accompany the outstanding construction of the building, Bayrock Group imported the best materials and hired world-renowned interior designers to make sure that the inside of the Trump SoHo matched the immaculate exterior of the condo-hotel.
Rockwell Group has designed projects for luxury hotels, casinos and upscale restaurants and has now furnished the Trump SoHo Tower with items from the acclaimed Italian design house Fendi Casa.
The Trump SoHo project houses premium restaurants and bars, an outdoor pool, a world-class spa as well as banquet and event space. Furthermore, hotel guests and residents can enjoy exceptional views of Manhattan’s skyscrapers through the building’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
Tevfik Arif pursuing further ventures
Following the success of Trump SoHo, Bayrock Group and the Trump Organization, who had worked together on the building, explored the possibility of establishing more projects under similar licensing terms in Florida and Arizona.
Unfortunately, those constructions never saw the light of the day because of the financial crisis that hit the real estate market in 2008.
During the time Bayrock Group was active in the United States, it invested in real estate assets valued at over $2.5 billion, however, it has not pursued any new American real estate development projects in recent years.
Following the success of Trump SoHo and a changing market in the United States, Tevfik Arif turned his focus to Europe and Central Asia, where his career had started decades earlier.
From public to private sector
Tevfik Arif was born in the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan in 1953 to Turkish parents as the second of four sons.
He pursued a degree in international relations at the Moscow Trade and Economic Institute followed by 17 years of working for the Soviet Ministry of Commerce and Trade. There, he rose to the position of deputy head of the Ministry’s Hotel Management Department.
Tevfik Arif left the public sector and entered the private sector during the period of industry privatization that followed the fall of the Soviet Union.
His interests in hotels and luxury real estate followed him on his new business venture, as he established a thriving business that dealt with real estate, property development, imports and exports, natural resources and minerals in the following decades.
Bayrock Group’s road to Trump SoHo
After many years of doing business in Europe and Central Asia, Tevrik Arif wanted to expand his growing global real estate interests to New York City.
Therefore, the Turkish-Kazakh businessman founded Bayrock Group in 2001. One of its first projects was Loehmann’s Seaport Plaza, a shopping center in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn.
After completing multiple modest projects, Bayrock Group started to seek bigger and increasingly high risk-high return activities.
A changing business strategy and growing ambitions motivated Bayrock Group to relocate the company’s New York City offices to the 24th floor of the Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, the most prestigious real estate market in the city.
The new office location brought Bayrock Group in close proximity to the Trump Organization, which also resided in the building, and it did not take long before the two firms were in talks to collaborate on a new real estate development project.
This was when the Trump SoHo condo-hotel came to life.
As Tevfik Arif acknowledged the power of the Trump brand, Bayrock Group came up with a strategy that would leverage the Trump name to add value and prominence to the project it was developing with the Sapir Organization.
That resulted in a licensing deal between Bayrock Group, the Sapir Organization and the Trump Organization, where the latter would get 18% equity in the building in exchange for using the Trump brand in the name of the new project, the Trump SoHo.
As mentioned, Bayrock Group and the Trump Organization had more real estate development projects in the pipeline, but they never became a reality because of the 2008 financial crisis.
Today, Tevfik Arif has largely retired from the day-to-day activities of his company, but he remains a valued advisor and source of wisdom to the firm.
Following his retirement, he has continued to pursue charitable causes important to him.
