Micro-Units Scrapped, Hotel Planned For Dupont Circle Office Building

• May 7, 2015

by UrbanTurf Staff

1337 Connecticut Avenue NW

The micro-units planned for the top of a Dupont Circle office building are being scrapped in favor of a hotel that will occupy the majority of the Connecticut Avenue property, UrbanTurf has learned.

Valor Development and building owner Endeka Enterprises originally proposed building eight condos atop the office building at 1337 Connecticut Avenue NW (map), and received zoning approval for their plan back in 2013. The team then changed plans and proposed 21 micro-units ranging in size from 330 to 420 square feet in the same space the eight condos would have occupied.

Early rendering of the hotel from Connecticut Avenue.

Now, they have changed gears again. Instead of micro-units, the development team is planning to convert the third through fifth floors of the building into a hotel; the previously approved sixth-floor addition would also be used for the hotel, as well as an unaffiliated restaurant. There would be a total of 50 hotel rooms. The office building would retain the retail tenant on the first and second floors.

Rendering from 18th Street NW.

“As we got deeper into the planning process on the existing plans, it become more obvious how difficult it would be to deliver residential density on top of the building due to the property’s tenant base and some of the design challenges of the existing structure,” Valor’s Will Lansing told UrbanTurf. “During this time, we were approached by a hotel operator who loved the location and then shortly thereafter one of the current building tenants notified us of their intent to vacate, which opens up a significant amount of space in the building to give the hotel operator what they are looking for.”

Lansing is currently under a non-disclosure with the hotel, so was unable to reveal the brand.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dupont_circle_micro-units_scrapped_hotel_planned/9844