DC May Get its First Green Hotel in West End

DC-based Perseus Realty, LLC has announced further details about the hotel it is building with partner Starwood Capital Corp., collaborating to build DC's first LEED-certified hotel, a 180-room hotel in at the corner of 22nd and M Streets (pictured above) in the city's West End neighborhood, as we reported in June, and the pair has now stated that the building will be a 5-star hotel and released renderings.

Connecticut-based Starwood recently began its new "1" chain of hotels with the groundbreaking in June of its first development in Seattle. The DC site will be the third hotel in the chain, following New York and Seattle, and the first hotel project for Perseus, but unlike its sister hotel in Seattle will have no retail or condominium element. In addition to seeking LEED certification through the U.S. Green Buiding Council (USGBC), Perseus intends to make this only the 2nd five-star hotel in the city after the Mandarin Oriential and the first in Northwest. This "will be the first luxury, eco-friendly hotel chain in the country, " said Gabrielle Kornely, Director of Marketing for Perseus, adding that one percent of profits will be donated to local environmental organizations.

Perseus expects to break ground in mid 2008 on the land it purchased from the Nigerian government, where the now-vacant Nigerian Embassy still stands, for which it reportedly paid $15.5m. While the developers have not yet opened any of the hotels - Seattle will be the first in early 2009 - and the DC site will not contain any independent retail, Kornely says the chain will provide appropriately luxurious services, including a "high end restaurant" and bar, and will be managed by Starwood when it opens in 2010. Construction is being coordinated by the architectural team of Leo Daly and Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture and Design.

Perseus Realty was formed in 2003, and broke off in 2004 into 4 real estate groups, each retaining the name Perseus in order to confuse real estate bloggers, but Kornely says the other Perseus entities are capital investment teams that do not develop on their own. Perseus (you know which one) is also in development of the YMCA property at 1235 W Street, NW, on which it will break ground next year. The YMCA include local retail, incorporating the historic row houses that front 13th St. The building housing the current Y will go away, but its facilities will be replaced and co-located with the retail. Perseus is also under construction on the Argent, a 96-unit condo in Silver Spring which broke ground this summer.