WhyHotel May Be Coming to Ballston Quarter

• October 29th 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

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WhyHotel may be bringing its services to Ballston.

The company is seeking a site plan amendment to allow temporary hotel use at 4100 Wilson Boulevard (map) (also known as 700 North Randolph Street), the site of a planned residential building that is part of the larger Ballston Quarter redevelopment.

WhyHotel is a new company that bills itself as a pop-up operator of hotel units at residential buildings which have just delivered, ensuring developers have a reliable stream of revenue while they are leasing apartments. The lease-up process typically can take more than a year, and WhyHotel operates some of the apartments as hotel rooms until they are leased. 

WhyHotel would temporarily convert 175 of the 405 residential units at Ballston Quarter into hotel units. The units will be furnished and would allow for short-term rentals of up to 30 days or "long-term" rentals of 30-90 days. 

WhyHotel would operate the units for up to two years while the building is leasing up, and the units will revert back to residential use if leased in the interim; however, the company would still be permitted use of up to 175 units at any given time, allowing other vacant units to be rotated into hotel use if needed. 

The 22-story building is being developed by Forest City and is designed by CallisonRTKL. There would also be 51,860 square feet of street-level retail. The residential building is expected to deliver in March.

WhyHotel has also been deployed to other residential developments like the Bartlett in Pentagon City and Equity Residential's 100 K Street NE project. The concept is also, in essence, a more legitimate iteration of the illegal "apartels" (apartment hotels) which have come under fire in the past year for taking rental units off the market in favor of short-term rentals. 

Rendering courtesy of CallisonRTKL.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/whyhotel-may-be-coming-to-ballston-quarter/14628.