Map of the Month: Recent Hotel Growth in DC

In May of 2014, downtown Washington, DC welcomed the Marriott Marquis as the hotel compliment to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (WCC) along Massachusetts Avenue, NW. The long-awaited “convention center hotel” was part of the overall development plans for the WCC when work began in the early 2000’s. With 217 total conventions hosted in 2013, the WCC has certainly drawn the crowds and in 2014, the Marriott Marquis could begin lodging those guests in its 1,175 new hotel rooms. The sudden influx of new hotel rooms created a 13% increase in the total number of rooms in the Downtown DC BID (1). In the same month as the Marriott Marquis opening, Cambria Suites opened a 182-room hotel just north of the WCC at Roadside Development’s CityMarket at O project.

Although it is certainly rare in DC for a single hotel to add nearly 1,200 new rooms to the market, investment in new hotel and hospitality projects in the District is not at all an abnormality. Washington, DC is riding a quiet, yet substantial wave of new hotel development, driven by growth in smaller hotels of around 150-250 hotel rooms.

Since 2013, 2,101 new hotel rooms have delivered in Washington – 743 new hotel rooms excluding the before-mentioned Marriott Marquis and Cambria Suites. Additionally, The Concordia received an extensive renovation, including the full refresh of their 121 hotel rooms.
Equally impressive, the future growth of hotel projects continues to be strong in DC. There are currently just under 1,900 new hotel rooms under construction in the District with 426 existing rooms receiving full renovations. Of the seven projects under construction, only two will be located in the traditional Downtown/East End and Golden Triangle neighborhoods. The other five hotels will be distributed between all 4 of DC’s quadrants, showing the high demand for hotel rooms outside of the downtown commercial core.

Future and planned hotel development remains strong as smaller projects continue to populate the commercial pockets outside of Downtown/East End. Of the eleven future projects featured on our map, a minimum of 1,903 new hotel rooms are planned in the short/medium term.

Long term projects such as The Parks at Walter Reed and Burnham Place at Union Station were not considered in these figures.

1 Cooper, Rebecca. “Downtown D.C. hotels take a hit after Marriott Marquis opens.” Top Shelf, Washington Business Journal. 29 Aug. 2014.