Four-Star Hotel Coming to The Wharf

It was reported in this week's Capital Business that Hoffman-Madison Waterfront is in negotiations with Carr Hospitality and Intercontinental Hotels Group to build and operate a 268-key, four-star hotel at The Wharf. The new hotel will be next to the office building that will be occupied by The Graduate School USA at 9th Street & Maine Avenue (the site of the temporary Kastles Stadium at The Wharf). The hotel operators are the same ones that operate the Willard Intercontinental Hotel downtown (Carr Hospitality also has plans to build a hostel/hotel at the 100 block of Q Street). Room rates at the waterfront hotel are anticipated to run between $300 and $400 a night, similar to rates at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (the average cost for a room next Saturday). From the article:

Hammad Shah, president and chief operating officer of Carr Hospitality, said the company had been looking to open a second Washington hotel.

“The thought process here is really to create a unique luxury hotel, one of its kind, and I believe the Intercontinental brand fits the mold very well because of its success in Washington with the Willard, and because it’s an international brand,” Shah said.

Shah said the hotel would take advantage of the site’s location overlooking the Washington Channel. He said he expects the hotel to have a 5,000-square-foot rooftop lounge and two ballrooms looking out onto the water, as well as two restaurants.

The hotel also would be near one of the waterfront’s planned piers. Shah said Carr is in negotiations to purchase boat slips from the development team, which would allow guests to arrive by boat. “Everybody gets on and off at the doorsteps of the hotel,” Shah said.

Back in April, Hoffman-Madison Waterfront selected Humboldt Hospitality to advise them on the sale of the hotel site.  Construction on the first phase of development at The Wharf is planned for the end of 2012.

Rendering courtesy of Hoffman-Madison Waterfront

A Few Quick Items: New Metrobus Route, CBCC Survey, SW Playground Project Receives $40K Donation, Dog Park Petition

- Starting on September 25, WMATA will introduce a new bus route that will connect Southwest and Downtown. The new route will be called the "74 - Convention Center/Southwest Waterfront" and will run seven days a week from 5am to 1am. During peak periods, headways will be 18 minutes and 24 minutes during other times.  This fall, Next Bus real-time destination screens will be installed at eight bus shelters along the route. The route is shown on the above map. The dotted line portion of the route shows the extension of the line to Buzzard Point during weekday peak periods. This new route was made to replace the SW Waterfront-Convention Center Circulator route that will be discontinued at the end of this month and also replaces the 70-71 routes.

- The Near SE-SW Community Benefits Coodinating Council (CBCC) is conducting a survey of ANC 6D residents to find out what services they would use in a community center. The survey is available online and participants are entered into a drawing to win a $25 Safeway gift card. Surveys must be completed by September 30. On a CBCC-related note, there will be a reception on October 4 at the Capitol Skyline Hotel to discuss The Wharf developers' community benefit commitment to hire CBE's. for more information, check their website.

- The Mandarin Oriental Hotel was able to raise over $40,000 for the SW Playground Project last Sunday at their inaugural FANtastic March 10K walk/run. $10,000 of the funds was a corporate match from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and the rest came from race participants, nearly 220 people.  Congratulations to race winners Miles Hilder and Sara Vuong, both Southwest residents.

- The SW Dog Park group is passing around an online petition to support bringing an off leash dog park to Southwest, the only quadrant in the city without a dog park. The group has been taking their dogs to Lansburg Park, but the gate at the tennis court is broken so it makes it difficult to enclose the area for dogs to run and play. 

A Few Quick Items: FANtastic March 10K, Maine Avenue Construction, SW Comm-Unity Day

- The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is sponsoring a 10K walk/run to benefit the Southwest Playground Project - the FANtastic March 10K will take place on Sunday, September 18th around monumental Washington. The entry fee is $50 and includes breakfast, a FANtastic t-shirt, and a barbeque at the conclusion of the run at Hains Point. In addition, the Mandarin will make a corporate match up to $10,000 towards the Southwest Playground Project. To date, about $1,750 has been raised out of the $10,000 goal for the event. Click here to sign up for the 10K. Other recent corporate contributions toward the playground include a $5,000 grant from the Safeway Foundation and $1,250 from Station 4 during their soft opening on June 26.

- DDOT began road work today on eastbound Maine Avenue from the northbound 14th Street Bridge ramp to 12th Street. According to DDOT:

The project will replace the existing 4-foot-wide sidewalk with a new 14-foot-wide trail, accommodating both bicyclists and pedestrians, and replace the existing road surface. Installation of new storm water drainage elements, bio-retention areas, trees, lighting, signs, curb, gutter and fencing is also included in the project. To accommodate these amenities, on-street parking in this area will be eliminated. The number of vehicular lanes will be reduced from two to one and some driveway entrances to businesses will be realigned.

Construction will take place Monday – Friday from 7am to 7pm and sometimes on weekends from 8am to 5pm. During construction, the eastbound sidewalk and the Maine Avenue entrance to the Fish Market will be closed. Access to the market will still be open via Water Street. The work will be completed around mid-October.

- The 5th Annual SW Comm-Unity Day is set for Saturday, August 6 at the King-Greenleaf Recreation Center from 9am - 8pm. The day-long event will offer free activities for the entire family. SW Comm-Unity Day stems from the annual Unity Day event that used to occur each summer when former residents of Southwest that were displaced during urban renewal would come back to the neighborhood. For more information, check the SW Comm-Unity Forum’s website.

A Couple Quick Items

- Actress Meryl Streep does her part to get the Senate to pass legislation to allow the purchase of federal property to build the National Women's History Museum at 12th Street and Independence Avenue by attending a fundraiser last week at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, according to WTOP. The House of Representatives passed the bill last October. Streep is an honorary board member for the group working to build the museum and serves as its national spokeswoman.

- Also from WTOP, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $4.6 million contract to Hirani Engineering and Land Surveying to start construction on a levee system next month on 17th Street, NW on the National Mall. A new floodplain map was recently done that shows parts of Southwest and downtown now fall under the flood plain, which prompted the city to get the levee built. Here is a map that shows which areas of the city now fall under the flood plain. Properties that fall in the new flood plain are required to get flood insurance, but this insurance will be temporary, since the levee will cause the flood plain map to change once the construction project is complete in 2011.

CityZen Pastry Chef Nominated for RAMMY; Sou'Wester Reviewed in Hill Rag

The nominees for the 2010 RAMMY Awards, given by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, have been released and one of the nominees for Best Pastry Chef is Amanda Cook at CityZen, one of the restaurants at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This year's RAMMY's will take place on June 6th at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Northwest.

Another restaurant at the hotel - Sou'Wester, which has been open for about six months, was reviewed in March's Hill Rag in a piece called Sou'Wester Sparkles in Southwest. I have yet to visit this restaurant since I don't eat out very much for dinner, but I'm adding it to my list. Have any of you eaten at Sou'Wester? How is the food?

CVS Opens at The Portals

CVS is now open at The Portals, the large mixed-use development project along Maryland Avenue. The store actually opened a week ago, but I noticed the Grand Opening signs yesterday when I drove by the site. Back in the Spring, we reported that CVS was slated to open at the Portals, after Madison Retail Group signed the tenant to a 10,000 square foot space. I'm sure the workers in the office buildings and the neighboring Mandarin Oriental Hotel are happy to see the opening of CVS, the largest retailer to open to date at The Portals. CVS is located in the 3rd phase building, as seen in the above photo. Other retailers at The Portals include Starbucks, Potbelly's, and a pay-by-the-pound food provider, as well as the restaurants at the Mandarin. Here are the hours of operation for CVS:

Monday - Friday: 7am - 9pm

Saturday - Sunday: 9am - 9pm

New Food Options Coming Soon!

- Over the next month, two new restaurants will be opening in the neighborhood. On Friday at 11AM, there will be a soft opening at Hogate's Cafe, which is located on 800 Water Street at the former H2O nightclub (and before that Hogate's). Kristina Noell, a former employee at H2O, will be opening the new restaurant (See a post from February for some background on the project). In this month's The Southwester newspaper, there's a neighborhood dining guide, which includes a description of the type of cuisine planned at Hogate's Cafe. The Grand Opening will be on Wednesday, September 9th at 10AM. Below are the hours of operation, starting on September 10th:

Monday - Friday: 6AM - 10PM

Saturday - Sunday: 9AM - 10PM

- Later in September, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, according to DCist, will open a restaurant in the old Cafe MoZU space called Sou'wester. Back in March, Southwest...TLQTC posted about the new concept, which was tentatively called South by Southwest, but apparently, that name caused problems, since there's an annual festival in Austin, Texas with the same name. While we in DC are more accustomed to Nor'easters, the meaning behind the name Sou'wester is similar - it refers to a storm, or strong wind originating from the southwest.

Job Opening at the Mandarin Oriental

The WBJ reported earlier this week that the general manager of the Mandarin Oriental is relocating to the hotel's Bangkok, Thailand location at the end of this month. While a search for a new manager is underway, the resident manager and the Executive Vice President of the hotel chain's northern region will run the daily operations of the SW location. The luxury hotel is a part of the massive Portals office complex, located on Maryland Avenue. Above is a photo of the hotel taken back in October 2008.

South by Southwest Coming to DC

I'm not referring to the festival in Austin, but South by Southwest is the name of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel restaurant that will replace Cafe MoZU this summer, according to the Going Out Gurus at The Washington Post. A description of the Eastern Shore-inspired menu is described in the Post article:

A preview of the menu reveals blue crab soup, chicken and dumplings, braised rabbit leg with grits and hush puppies with honey butter. Desserts will highlight "small bites" of American classics and seasonal pies: carrot cake, strawberry shortcake, peach cobbler and grasshopper pie. Dinner entrees average $22; desserts are $5 each. The restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The naming of the restaurant is an attempt to relate the hotel more to its neighborhood, since the restaurant has windows with views of the Southwest Waterfront and Tidal Basin.

Above is a photo of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel taken in October 2008.