AdMo Hotel Gets New Look, Pushes Forward

Plans for the hotel addition to the Adams Morgan Historic Hotel have a new look, a new design team - and no shortage of comments on both - at yet another Historic Preservation Review Board meeting.

The Board again will hear community testimony at its May meeting before making a decision about the plans to develop at the First Church of Christ Scientist building on Euclid Street. Dozens of residents attended the March and April meetings for their chance to speak, but two meetings was simply not enough time to hear them all. Another 45 minutes will be designated for the project in May when the Board might finally get its chance to ask some questions and cast a vote.

Barbara Mullenex, principal at OPX Global, presented its latest plans in March showing a more subdued, red brick masonry building with light steel windows behind the century-old church that itself is under consideration for historic landmark status. The new building is 90 feet tall on Euclid Street but steps back as the land slopes down 13 feet toward Champlain Street. A 3-floor, mostly glass, 28-foot hyphen joins the two buildings.

Click here for more renderings

Friedman Capital Advisors and national hotel developer Beztak Companies first introduced plans for a 180,000 s.f. "boutique hotel" four years ago. Marriott signed on to manage the hotel as part of the Edition line of boutique hotels created in conjunction with Ian Schrager's hyper-sophisticated brand. But Kevin Montano, head of development for Edition, said the developers terminated the Ian Schrager agreement several months ago.

The Adams Morgan Historic Hotel website still lists Marriott as the hotel management. Brian Friedman did not return calls or emails requesting information about the project.

New construction behind the (not yet designated) historic church will provide space for guest rooms, parking and other more private facilities. The church will be refurbished and repurposed for a restaurant, ballrooms and community room open to the public.

The Board provided concept review for the project in July and November of 2008 when Handel Architects presented a mostly glass building with colored panels. According to the latest Historic Preservation Office staff report:

"In its two concept reviews in June and November 2008, the Review Board offered a range of comments to improve the compatibility of the project. Those comments focused on: 1) increasing the distance and visual separation between the church and the addition; 2) ensuring the connection was light-weight in feeling and lower in height than the church’s cornice line; 3) redesigning the porte-cochere and vehicular access to the addition to ensure it did not extend over to the side yard of the church; 4) shifting the mass of the addition away from the church to the greatest extent possible (moving it further down Champlain Street and/or concentrated at the rear/west side were specifically suggested); and 5) articulating the building’s all-glass elevations so that they didn’t appear flat, monolithic and looming behind the church building. It has been based on this guidance that the HPO has worked with the applicants over the past 18 months to ensure that these points of concern have been addressed."

The building is more clearly separated from the church, the glass connector is much shorter and transparent, vehicle traffic moved to a redesigned porte-cochere that fits better with Champlain Street, massing shifted away from the church, and masonry replaced most of the glass.

The Historic Preservation Office staff report "recommends that the Board find the revised concept to be compatible with the proposed landmark and consistent with the purpose of the preservation act..." If the Board follows that recommendation, it is fairly certain members will offer tips for improvement as plans develop. The real problems could occur with zoning.

Residents who dislike the plan seem to focus on two big factors – height and community impact.

This fall, the Office of Planning sent a report to the Zoning Commission including concerns about the building’s height. The Zoning Commission agreed in November to set down the proposal for a hearing but also expressed its own height concerns.

Designs changed since November based on recommendations from the Zoning Commission such as colors and massing. But the overall height dropped only two feet to fit within current zoning limits, leaving even more uncertainty about whether a high-end hotel can be a good-enough addition to AdMo - the District's preeminent late night bar scene. 

Washington, D.C., real estate development news

OPX is in the Details

By Beth Herman

With the bling and bang of Chinatown steps from its front door, reimagining a tired, nondescript, mid-1980s limited services hotel property to reflect its robust neighbors, and also honor Asia's serenity and tradition, was not quite your grandmother’s hospitality redesign. Charged by new owner RLJ Development - which had acquired the former Comfort Inn- turned-Red Roof Inn property in June, 2010 - with transforming the property for its brand Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, OPX project designer Ryan Langlois cited the 21st century fusion that is D.C.'s Chinatown. An evolving venue defined by an international range of shops, eateries and entertainment elements from Tony Cheng's, Vapiano’s, a Thai restaurant or two, Starbuck’s and the MCI Center, to traditional Chinese jelly fish and snake soup at the corner market, Langlois said the design inspiration came from the “sights, the sounds, the smells,” of the explosive, melded Chinatown experience. Fireworks withstanding, the onus was also on the firm to integrate the quiet grace and centuries-old symbolism of Asian culture into the new design, producing what Langlois called an “organic, modern, contemporary” environment. In this vein, a strong tradition of latticework evident in Chinese architecture, intricate wood screens, shades and shutters were used to punctuate the space in various forms, restyled and updated for focal quality. Where Asian symbols and design were referenced, experts were retained to review their authenticity. 

At the starting gate 

“When we designed this originally, we noted Fairfield Inn & Suites is more typically a conservative brand for the limited service sector,” Langlois explained, noting OPX had been involved in a rebranding effort for Marriott Corporate’s nationwide brand when RLJ approached them about the Chinatown property. Accordingly, OPX had taken a conventional design approach. “But RLJ looked at it and realized they really wanted to see more design – more Chinatown – in the project, and challenged us to go back to the drawing board and build on what we had,” he said. Helmed by Principal Ken Terzian, the 198-room, 10-story structure went under a rather large knife in a high-velocity, $7 million, nine-month renovation that began by reconfiguring a 2,700 s.f. lobby. With lessor The Irish Channel restaurant and pub occupying about 50 percent of the space at the outset, the renovation involved an expanded lobby to accommodate Fairfield Inn & Suite’s breakfast program, resulting in a reduction of The Irish Channel’s dining space and reconfiguration of its seating, but retention of its bar. In the lobby’s reception area, a bold 7-by-22-ft. graphic custom mural developed by Langlois and HG Arts greets guests. Abstract and textured, a water scene in the image of a “scaled-up” stream with a dragon atop a stone column, and another dragon that is overlaid, complement overlaying modern graphic twig patterns in turquoise and white. According to the designer, everything is printed on wall covering and “bedazzled,” or covered with thousands of transparent beads one-eighth of an inch in diameter so it all glistens. Wall washes ensure ultimate sparkle, and the mural wraps the corner and keeps on going. Simple water drop light fixtures frame the area, but do not detract from the focal point. “When you first walk in, you see one portion of it, and then when you exit the space, you see things from another side,” Langlois said, speaking to a litany of the property’s “surprises.” Included on the short list are tiled columns with upholstery wraps – or leather-like corsets– that resemble a kind of fabric wainscoting, replete with decorative fasteners that might be seen on Asian clothing. 

Eggs and vistas 

In the redesigned hotel breakfast area, as in the rest of the lobby space, windows are spacious and open to court interest from passersby. Conversely, when having breakfast, guests will be able to look out and see Washington, D.C. start its day, Langlois said. Redolent of Chinese dining halls where ceilings are typically comprised of 12-by-12-ft. squares with applied woodwork, gold trim and bright colors, the breakfast area’s ceiling insets honor the tradition. Four distinct coves are painted gold with surrounding LED lights, along with painted red gloss trim that makes up the decorative motif. Medallions spawn sculptural lighting fixtures that are 60 by 30-inch tapered drum shades, created by Langlois specifically for the project. Using decorative, Asian-style paper from The Paper Source, the designer lined the insides to create opaque objects that channel concentrated light directly down and onto the tables. Overlapping circular patterns inside the drums change color with the use of blue, green, gold, red and orange paper, creating a surprise detail for observant diners. To the side of the dining room, column-based dark brown wooden chopsticks light fixtures bring an Asian organic quality to the space, reminiscent of contemporary twigs-and-wire fixtures. The inside of the chopsticks fixtures is a “juicy saffron color – like the yellow of Buddhist monks’ robes – that’s going to glow against the brown and bronze metal trim,” Langlois said.

In the vestibule, a screen of Dacron-stuffed green interwoven patent leather panels embossed with a dragon scale texture, with polished stainless steel buttons, was inspired by Chinese temple doors. “You always see the red doors with the grid of gold buttons on them; this is our version,” Langlois said of the architects’ efforts to honor but update tradition. The top portion of the screen, with its Chinese square-in-the-circle motif trumpeted throughout the hotel (loosely translated, heaven is represented by a circle and earth by a square), is infilled by an acrylic panel of red flowers and reedy bamboo stems for an organic element. According to Langlois, the lobby business center became an adventure in scale, function and whimsy. Gilded by a specially-designed 16-by-86-inch box kite light fixture which referenced Asian kite festivals, the small space needed something more to distinguish it without overwhelming its dimension and budget. As such, the designer found a large veneer wood panel and had a canvas-wrapped print made of a stock photography image from HG Arts (colors were manipulated to match the carpet) for the panel’s right side. On the left, a series of polished, 3-inch chrome fortune cookies pepper the panel, reflecting the light from H Street. “Even if fortune cookies didn’t start in China, they are ubiquitous in American culture and associated with Chinatown,” Langlois said. Counters for laptops are made of enduring white, grey and blue-veined granite to perform well, but resemble marble. 

Of koi and custom case goods 

For OPX, the challenge to transition from bold, bubbling lobby to sanctuary-like guest corridors and rooms was met with homage to organic and natural shapes, colors and textures. With water connoting restfulness and flowers a mainstay of Asian culture (there’s a whole protocol for giving, receiving, occasioning, etc. according to Langlois), a carpeted floating pond corridor was envisioned with colorful koi pulled off to the side, disappearing beneath corridor walls as they would swim beneath the edges of a pond embankment. Tree trunks are represented by dark brown columns flanking guestroom doors, and a pale yellow wall covering reveals abstract twig patterns in yellows and golds, much like branches. (Langlois did mention a nod to cherry blossoms on a wall. Though not from China, they bespeak the beauty of Asia and what’s Washington without them!) Guestrooms came with their own set of construction caveats the team had to overcome, according to Langlois, dominant among them walls that were precast concrete. “It’s great for sound, but not so great for renovation requisites like new power, Internet and other technology,” Langlois said. Addressing Marriott’s standard package for hotel rooms which includes a freestanding desk, chair, dresser, TV, full length mirror and welcome sconce in a 12 or 12.5-ft. floorplan, the designer noted these rooms, constructed years ago for another hotel and only 11-by-6-ft., were shy of necessary space. To that end, a slimmed down/component integrated custom case goods piece was designed with features like a smaller desk (scaled to laptop size) cantilevered off a chest of drawers, and a dual-purposed built-in bench accommodating luggage and providing extra seating. An open shelf beneath a wall-mounted TV houses a coffeemaker and amenity tray. Tantamount to the economy-of-space room design, an Asian theme was manifested in a headboard pattern with the traditional square-in-circle motif reflected in other parts of the hotel, this time inside a fleur-di-lis, and via the use of red accent color in a nod to Chinese lacquer ware. With the décor package for the guestrooms built upon the Marriott standard in part, carpeting is blue with a green geometric pattern overlay, but the colors flow from the corridors’ aforementioned “floating pond” theme for continuity. “You don’t want to walk in off bright orange carpet,” Langlois said of the objective to create a seamless, restful environment. “This is a unique hotel,” said RLJ Development, LLC’s Carl Mayfield, senior vice president for design and construction, speaking to the company’s catalogue of 141 properties. “It’s transformational. We’ve got a few gems in our portfolio, and this is one of them.” 

A Neighborhood Runs Through It: The Hilton Washington

By Beth Herman

Frank Lloyd Wright was right. The story goes that in the 1940s, the iconoclast architect stood on the site of the future Hilton Washington, next to a once grand but derelict Victorian mansion known as "The Heights," declaring it a prime location for a hotel. Two decades later, Conrad Hilton shared that vision and on March 28, 1965, built in the signature 1960s and '70s Brutalism style of the American modernist movement by architect William B. Tabler Sr., the hotel - at 1919 Connecticut Ave. NW - opened its doors to what continues to be a Washington keystone.

With more than one million s.f. of space and following a massive, three-year (concept-to-champagne) $150 million renovation - and in many spaces a painstaking restoration - the Hilton Washington is still going strong, having reinvented itself in time for a re-launch on May 25. Shepherded by OPX Global architects, under the auspices of owners Lowe Enterprises and the Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund which purchased the property for $290 million in 2007, the hotel has achieved historic preservation status in its quest to become a coveted landmark property, and also included community focus groups, to reestablish itself as a seminal neighborhood landmark.

Up to the Challenge

“They’re really trying to be a hotel that lives in Kalorama, lives in DuPont, lives in the U Street Corridor,” said W. David Owen, OPX principal, explaining that among other things, his firm opened up the property by improving the clarity of glass on the public levels so neighbors could see into the lobby when illuminated at night. Conversely, the profile of the landscaped dome outside was lowered for more visual access from the inside out to the sidewalk. Soon-to-be realized plans for a Starbucks just inside the lobby will serve both hotel guests and area residents, and in an effort to improve relationships with most of the neighbors, according to Owen, the loading dock, where facilitating large exhibits has been known to impede street travel, was redesigned in ways that included reworking turn planes and improving capability to accept larger bay trucks.

In the big picture, among the many design challenges for OPX Global was an effort to establish a sense of flow and make every space feel seamless, according to Owen, who noted it had been “chopped up” in prior renovations. In part this was achieved by establishing a basic palette at the front door with very light finishes in contrast to dark woods, something that resonates throughout the property. Bringing the building back to its modernist roots, in light of prior renovations, also posed a challenge, as did a 21^st century dictum for the integration of pervasive and visible technology vis-à-vis “raising the hotel up into the luxury market.”

Down to Business

To meet increasing demands of the thousands of annual convention and business travelers who call the Hilton Washington home, the concept of lobby as business center is now illustrated by a communal table for laptops, with seating, and with connectivity possible just about everywhere. The division between lobby, dining room and bar is gone; ordering food or drink while “laptopping” is encouraged, with surrounding flat screen TV’s that flash news and sports landscapes replacing what might have been prints of Frederic Church landscapes in the 1960s. Lobby vistas also include interactive signage - upwards of 30 touch screens - many positioned just outside meeting rooms that enable guests to investigate what’s going on in the hotel, throughout D.C. and flight schedules for that matter. A series of state-of-the-art meeting rooms (drop down projection screens; whiteboards; blackout drapes) that open to outdoor spaces have names such as Katharine Graham and John Jay – with brief histories – which reflect the more familial and community aspects of Washington, as opposed to allusions to the federal city which may characterize other establishments. This is something the architects decided would better define a community-oriented hotel, one where neighbors even have pool memberships.

Around the Room(s)

According to Owen, when the hotel was built, “…it was kind of an interesting hybrid because the latest trend at that time was motor courts.” Accordingly, the 1,250 guestrooms – all of which faced out and curved per Tabler’s design – were very small, emblematic of the “clean, efficient, moderately priced” motor court credo. “It stood in contrast to some of the grand hotels that were here, which serves well for a convention market where people are not in their rooms for most of the day,” Owen explained. Efficiency withstanding, and without altering the guestroom footprint, OPX Global rallied to visually expand the stark, small, utilitarian “pie wedge-shaped” rooms to include warm bathroom granite-topped cabinetry that “looks like a piece of furniture,” and replace doors with translucent glass sliders. Bathroom floors are marble, and combination light/mirror fixtures both conserve and open up space.

The hotel is renowned for its legendary 35,815 s.f. International Ballroom which seats 2,700 and, according to one source, is one of the largest public hotel spaces south of NY and east of the Mississippi. The ballroom is the annual scene of the crime for the White House Correspondents Association dinner, among other glittering events, including one of 2008’s inaugural balls. A brand new 15,000 s.f. exhibition space, Columbia Hall, is part of an additional 20,000 s.f. of public space added to the hotel, and can be used as a whole or partitioned into four separate rooms or two banks of two with a center corridor. “Actually I believe there are almost 10 configurations they can do with walls around the center,” Owen said, with the center portions having 14-foot ceilings to comply with Hilton brand’s requisite for social event rooms.

“All of the construction was done while the hotel was operating,” Owen stated. “It never closed, except for one two-week period after holiday parties when things slow down, in order to relocate a massive amount of plumbing that involved the ceiling in the lobby area. Forfeiting 100 of the hotel’s 1250 guestrooms to the renovation, the hotel anticipates creating long term rental suites for business travelers replete with kitchenettes and other extended living-type amenities. The owners have also received approval from the District to build a condo tower on the property, wherein residents will be able to share hotel amenities such as maid service, health club, catering and more, according to Owen.