Donald Trump's Jones Beach Catering Hall Project Axed

It's been a long six years for real estate mogul Donald Trump and his dream of putting a massive catering hall along the beach at Jones Beach, on Long Island's South Shore.

After seemingly endless litigation and negotiations, he finally got the green-light in June to begin construction in 2013 of an 80,000 square foot building that would include a restaurant that could seat over 400, and a catering hall that could accommodate up to 1,250.

But then Hurricane Sandy happened.

The boardwalk was battered, the excavated land was completely flooded, and both Trump and the state realized that maybe it's not such a great idea to build a massive structure right on the beach in this time of unprecedented storms along the East Coast. According to Newsday, the project has been cancelled.

"Sandy has opened everyone's eyes to the potential risks of building directly on the oceanfront," state parks commissioner Rose Harvey said in a statement. "As we face sea level rise and the threat of future damaging storms, we have concluded that building a major new facility directly on the oceanfront, on the scale of the Trump project, is not prudent policy."

The site has a history of restaurants, as the first was built in 1936 but burned down in 1964. Its replacement was torn down in 2004, and in 2006 Trump was chosen to construct a new building on the site. But due to the prospect of future storms, it's most likely that nothing will ever be built there.