Thursday, July 24, 2014

New Hotel for Chinatown

Location of proposed 245 room hotel in Chinatown.
District Source has a very detailed run down of the zoning adjustments made en route to approval of a 245-key hotel project in Chinatown. The article discusses the reasons the project was allowed to move forward despite planning for zero on-site car parking spaces, which is typically a no-no for a development of this size. 

The H Street Hotel would be built atop a long-empty lot on the 600 block of H St NW, between Vapiano and Panera restaurants. (The future of this lot, including its parking allotment, has been in question for seven years.) This space is directly across the street from the WMATA Metrorail Gallery Pl-Chinatown station and adjacent to stops for the busy 70s and X bus lines. Currently the closest hotels to this site are Kimpton's Hotel Monaco and Marriot's Fairfield Inn & Suites. 

The new hotel would be run by Modus Hotels, the company behind DC's One Washington Circle and George Washington University Inn hotels. With no current structures remaining on the lot to incorporate, the hotel would feature all-new construction. The 245 rooms would bring the hotel to 11 floors, including some form of ground level retail. Exciting development for this block, one of the busiest in the central business district.