WASHINGTON
Located near the site where J. Willard and Alice Marriott launched a worldwide international hospitality company from their nine-seat root beer stand in 1927, Washington, D.C.'s long-awaited convention headquarters hotel - the Marriott Marquis Washington - will open in May.
The newest major D.C. hotel to open in 20 years, it will be connected by underground concourse to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, which opened in 2003.
The new $520 million,1,175-room hotel will help make the nation's capital competetive with other top tier meetings destinations.
According to Elliott Ferguson, president and CEO of Destination DC: "We will become competitive with the new hotel, and be able to host larger citywide events. Because the Marriott Marquis attached to the convention center we can layer conventions in the center - one with exhibit space in the center, and another with exhibit space in the hotel."
Marriott International's headquarters is in the national capital region. The company also operates the 2,000-room Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center on the Potomac River in Maryland, which offers 470,000 square feet of function space.
The Marriott Marquis Washington will be located only blocks from the National Mall and its several museum and monument attractions, as well as the Capitol and U.S. Congress office buildings.
The new billion-dollar CityCenterDC mixed-use development that is rising on the site of the city's former convention center is just two blocks from the Marquis' door. It is adding new restaurants, retail, office and residential spaces to center city.
Also new on the downtown scene two blocks from the Marquis is a 200-room Cambria Suites.
