D.C. congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton took a moment to take a shot at National Harbor as she and other politicos congratulated each other for finally breaking ground on the hotel counterpart to the District’s convention center.
“With National Harbor breathing down our collective backs, we’re telling them we’re not going to let them eat our lunch — they can just eat their hearts out,” Norton told the crowd of several hundred that gathered for the groundbreaking Wednesday morning.
City officials have been working with Marriott to bring a hotel to the convention center for seven years. On Wednesday, the $520 million project got officially underway. The hotel is expected to ope in 2014.
Officials like Norton hope the hotel will make the District more competitive for the many large-scale conventions that come to the Washington-area. Mayor-elect Vince Gray estimated on Wednesday that the District has lost more than $200 million in convention business to the likes of National Harbor by not having a hotel serving the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Opened in 2008, the Gaylord National Harbor hotel sits just outside the Capital Beltway on the Potomac River in Prince George’s County and combines a massive convention space with hotel rooms and restaurants.
