The District and two private sector partners will coordinate to build a 1,434-room hotel adjacent to the Washington Convention Center, a long awaited project that could close the gap between D.C. and other convention destinations.
Mayor Anthony Williams signed legislation Tuesday authorizing the District to issue up to $187 million in bonds to pay its share of the Convention Center hotel at 9th Street and Massachusetts Avenue Northwest. Marriott and equity investor RLJ Development, Black Entertainment Television Founder Robert Johnson’s development firm, will build the hotel and finance the remainder of the $600 million project.
Williams made hotel financing a priority for 2006, he said, and the end result will be a “world-class convention center hotel which in turn will create a large number of new jobs for our residents.”
City officials estimate the hotel project will create 1,805 construction and temporary jobs during development, and 1,270 jobs after it opens. The District estimates the project will generate $36 million in annual revenue when completed, and $44 million within three years of opening.
The city will repay the bonds with tax revenue generated on and around the site.
A 2004 feasibility study performed for the Washington Convention Center Authority found a 1,200 to 1,500-room hotel and roughly 75,000 square feet of additional meeting and ballroom space would attract far more events to the center, helping the city to close on such popular convention cities as San Diego, San Antonio and the pre-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
The new hotel is expected to open in 2010 or 2011. Only a few blocks away, the old Convention Center site will be redeveloped almost simultaneously as a massive mixed-use development of residential, retail and office.
