On Nov. 9, 1989, architect Ted Mariani won permission from the District to design and build a hotel on city-owned property near the Brookland Metro Station in Northeast. Adjacent to Trinity College, blocks from Catholic University and near four hospitals, the hotel conference center restaurant was, theoretically, a good bet to succeed.
Fast forward 17 years.
The property — half wooded and half Washington Hospital Center parking lot — remains hotel-free. Within 3 square miles of the parcel at Michigan Avenue and Irving Street, there still are no hotels worth mentioning. Mariani has suffered through four or five aborted attempts and countless negotiations, only to see one roadblock after another get in his way.
The Ward 5 transformation has been slow.
But the D.C. Council recently approved a resolution giving the architect and his partners another bite at the apple. Mariani says this time, the city’s hotel market is strong, new partners are on board, financing is in place, and Brookland is ready for development.
“It’s nice to see my old neighborhood coming on so well,” said Mariani, a Brookland native and architect of record on the D.C. Convention Center. “It’s a very good solid piece of the city that’s been overlooked.”
Mariani and Bethesda-based Hospitality Partners, a hotel management firm, are designing a 175-room Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, with plans for a second phase, 125-room Residence Inn.
Hospitality Partners President Michael Dickens said the timing was just right. With six to nine months of planning and permitting and 14 months of construction, the hotel could be open by summer 2008, he said.
“Ted talked with me about it before and I passed because the market was too tough,” Dickens said. “You just couldn’t make it work, to put 300 rooms in a market like that. If you overburden the market, you crash and burn right out of the box.”
The key to success “is the overall development of the neighborhood 10 years out,” Dickens said, and “the long-term potential of the area is very good.”
Debbie Smith, a Brookland advisory neighborhood commissioner and candidate for the Ward 5 council seat, said her neighborhood is experiencing a “renaissance,” but it still needs basic amenities like Mariani’s hotel and restaurant.
“Those type of developments are key in order to have revitalization, bring new visitors and just change the whole atmosphere of the community,” Smith said.
Hotel with benefits
» $2.5 million projected in annual sales and property taxes
» 134 full-time jobs, 87 at restaurant and 47 at hotel
