Dupont Circle is Getting a Long-Term, Corporate-Stay Micro-Hotel

• July 2, 2015

by Lark Turner

The view of the project from Connecticut Avenue.

The line between micro-units and micro-hotels is blurring.

A project originally slated to contain micro-units will now be built as a micro-hotel after securing approval Tuesday from the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA).

Valor Development received approval to build its 50-unit micro-hotel, where the smallest unit will take up just 218 square feet of space. The units will sit on top of a five-story office building at 1337 Connecticut Avenue NW (map). The hotel will also include a 2,000-square-foot restaurant on the top floor.

The project from 18th Street.

The project will be built without providing additional parking. That’s likely good news for Douglas Development, which is aiming to build a much larger micro-hotel on K Street, also without providing parking. The BZA delayed Douglas Development’s project last week over parking concerns.

An aerial view of the project.

“Parking’s always an issue,” BZA Chair Lloyd Jordan said to kick off the meeting, saying he was particularly concerned about the hotel’s employees. When he asked how they would get to work, Valor clarified that it plans to use the hotel as “an extended-use, corporate stay hotel” — meaning only a couple of employees would be at the hotel at any given time.

That makes Valor’s project not unlike the three micro-unit developments on tap from SB-Urban, which proposes short-term leases and potentially even breakfast for tenants at its properties. Another similarity between Valor and SB-Urban’s projects? Both include little to no parking.

A second aerial view of the project.

The project was unanimously approved by the BZA without discussion or community dissent.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dupont_circle_is_getting_a_long-term_corporate-stay_micro-hotel/10077