WTC Mosque: Muslim Leaders Meet

He said the land would be used for an international chess center and academy.

"We named the sum of $10 million because last week billionaire Donald Trump gave an offer of $7.5 million and we decided to outdo him," RIA Novosti reported.

Earlier this month, Donald Trump tried and failed to quell the drama surrounding the potential center. The real estate billionaire offered to buy out investor Hisham Elzanaty's stake in the development property, saying he would pay a 25% premium to whatever Elzanaty paid for his portion of the real estate partnership that controls the site.

Elzanaty's lawyer Wolodymyr Starosolsky called Trump's bid "just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight."

Donald Trump

Critics say building the mosque in such close proximity to the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center would be insensitive to the victims and families of nearly 2,800 people who died. Advocates of the plan defend the right to build an Islamic center near the WTC site as a reflection of religious freedom.

Trump had said he was "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."

Elzanaty is one of eight investors involved in the 13-story Islamic center.

Trump's offer to buy Elzanaty's stake came with conditions. As part of the deal, the mosque's developers would have to promise to build any new mosque at least five blocks further away from the WTC site. The current site is two blocks north of Ground Zero.

AP

The proposed site for an Islamic cultural center near ground zero in New York.

Vote: Should the Islamic center near Ground Zero take Donald Trump's offer and move elsewhere?