SkiAdcock

Didn't see a specific property thread, so thought I'd start one. Property is a Cat 7.

Historic Washington Marriott Georgetown Transformed

Excerpt:

"Washington Marriott Georgetown, the first Marriott hotel built in the nation’s capital in 1981, announces the completion of its $28 million transformation.

The newly transformed Washington Marriott Georgetown, situated at 1221 22nd Street at M Street, NW, lies in the heart of the city’s West End neighborhood, an area noted for its tree-lined residential streets, embassies, and critically-acclaimed restaurants, including the city’s first Nobu, scheduled to open later this year.

The hotel is within walking distance to historic Georgetown, Foggy Bottom, and Dupont Circle providing visitors quick access to shops, museums, and galleries.

Washington Marriott Georgetown’s elevates the guest experience by adding 8,300 square feet of new public space, a completely reimagined food and beverage program, 18 meeting rooms, a new fitness center, and the M Club Lounge. The hotel’s guest rooms feature the new “Marriott Modern Design” room

Today, the new Washington Marriott Georgetown unveils the following:

The M Club Lounge – An exclusive 24/7 lounge, reserved for Marriott Rewards Gold and Platinum Elite members offers complimentary food and beverage options, including local craft beers and wine on tap, such as Jordan Cabernet. The M Club Lounge also offers free elevated business services. The M Club Lounge access is also available for a nominal fee.

TED Talks – As part of a brand wide partnership, guests can now be inspired through playlists of TED talks that are now offered through their in room entertainment system.

Marriott Hotels’ Signature Bourbon Program – Our certified bartenders offer guests an elevated experience that includes advanced mixology and a deep knowledge of the history, and production of bourbon. Guests can enjoy world-renowned bourbon brands, as well as signature cocktails, and locally-curated bourbon flights, featuring Jos. A. Magnus, a distillery located in DC.

The Visiteur – Guests can enjoy reasonably priced small plates at the hotel’s new food concept, highlighting global taste with local comfort. Standouts on the menu include a hummus bar and inventive tacos featuring Jerk Shrimp and Cocoa Chili. Innovative cocktails such as the Oops I Did It A Gin, Som Like Scotch or the blazing barrel aged Cigarettes and Sushi.

Fitness Center – The brand new fitness facility flooded with natural light and thoughtfully designed, features advanced strength equipment and offers digital fitness classes with over 600 on-demand workouts including yoga courses, interval training and cardio boot camp. State-of-the-art cardio equipment comes with TED Talk videos on-demand.

Greatroom – a stylish hub of the hotel that serves as a great social gathering place for both day and night – is accented with contemporary décor and a layout that provides guests with a space to relax, collaborate, or grab a nightcap. Guests can enjoy a variety of great food and drink options as well as seamless connectivity with free Wi-Fi and essential technology."

Washington Marriott Georgetown Hotel website


Cheers.

jlb3

For those interested in staying here, be aware it isn't actually in Georgetown. It's in an area called West End, and is actually closer to DuPont Circle than G-town. You can walk to G-town in about 15-20 mins from this property, or take the circulator bus for $1.

Just to be clear, the hotel is in a great area with lots of shops/restaurants/bars within easy walking distance. But it isn't Georgetown.

HookEm

In the excerpt above by Sharon, it says under the description for the M Club that there is complimentary food and beverages, including local craft beer and wine on the tap. This implies that these beverages are free. I doubt that. While possible, it is more likely that this an incorrectly written description.

Often1

Both Marriott and Hyatt are taking significant grief for naming their non-Georgetown properties "Georgetown" when they aren't that.

Perfectly nice locations, but to be clear, you have to walk through two construction sites to get to the nearest edge of Georgetown and the Marriott property isn't even really in the West End, but at least that isn't a total lie.

If you are headed to the center of Georgetown, it's a good 20 minutes walk or Uber (bad traffic) and 30-40 minutes walk to Georgetown Univ.

CJKatl

Agreed that this is now a good area, but that wasn't always the case. Two rambling stories...

First: I lived in that area from 1983-86, and specifically on N St a block away during the summer of 1983. The area to the west of the Marriott over to Rock Creek Park and down to Pennsylvania Ave was about to be revitalized, but at the time, there were abandoned buildings, most of which used to be mechanics' garages. It was an easy area to find parking, but there was only a single streetlight in the middle of each block. One night, I parked over there. While walking home, I could see two people walking towards me. I slowed down so as to hit the light at the same time, thinking they might be potential muggers. Turned out it was Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer. They seemed as relieved that I wasn't going to mug them as I was that they weren't going to mug me. A couple days later, around noon, I was waiting for the walk sign at K St, near the Mayflower, which is across the street from ABC News. Diane Sawyer walks to the corner, says how nice it is to see me again and walks on. Everyone was looking at me wondering who I am that she was talking to me. I was wondering when did she realize I was just the guy who had not mugged her a couple days earlier.

Second: That Marriott used to house Blackie's Steak House. My parents would stay there when they visited and we would always eat a meal there. We once sat next to Ted Kennedy and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They and their party were quite enjoying themselves.

For those that don't know, Blackie's was repeatedly raided by INS. The restaurant would be tipped off ahead of time so employees would stay at home or quit. At one point, the restaurant had to close for a couple days while it hired and trained new staff because of the number of employees impacted. A restaurant I worked in at the time was also raided. We also knew ahead of time. Each employee had to go into a room where three INS agents quizzed us about where we were born, where we grew up, etc. I brought my passport with me to work that day and showed it to them.

SkiAdcock

Wouldn't be the first time that the public relations team wrote something incorrectly

Cheers.

jrich7970

I was there two weeks ago. Very nice. The lounge does have beer on tap, but it ain't for free.

The staff in the lounge is *very* attentive. And is always stocked with snacks beyond the normal candy, nuts, etc. Chips, granola bars, etc...haven't seen that yet in a lounge. Brand new coffee/espersso machine. They had some winery giving out free samples the other week too.

My only beef about the place was the construction (which isn't their fault, of course). The lighting in the lounge was a little too bright for me, and also, there were no places to put your used plates. You had to wait for the staff to come around and take them.

I felt bad leaving my stuff lying around, but, I guess that's what they want.

The "Georgetown" name, of course, is ridiculous. It's a 10 minute walk to Foggy Bottom, and another 10 or 15 to Georgetown after that.

And, in fact, it is only a block (or less) from the DuPont Circle Renaissance Inn.

There are a ton of places to eat only a block or so east.

I'll go back there if given the opportunity.

DELee

say what? that ain't georgetown! 1221 22nd Street at M Street, NW is not georgetown.

the sad part is that just about every hotel in the same area says either "georgetown" or "georgetown area": Hilton Garden Inn Washington DC/Georgetown Area (across the street from the Marriott), Embassy Suites WDC Georgetown (up the street), Best Western Georgetown, Westin Georgetown, Fairmont WDC Georgetown - wow! See for yourself on Google Maps.

at least the Park Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton and Ren Dupont Circle aren't blown such "georgetown"/"georgetown adjacent" smoke.

David

SkiAdcock

I created a wiki to clarify that the property, despite its name, is not actually in Georgetown but is closer to DuPont Circle. Now that we have that out of the way, look forward to more trip reports based on stays at the property.

If someone who stays there can post re: whether the M Lounge is open on the weekends I'd appreciate it, as I can then update the exec lounge sticky. Yes I know it's open 24/7, but is breakfast offered on Sat-Sun mornings in the lounge or in the restaurant, and do they serve evening apps on Fri-Sat nights as they would do Sun eve-Thurs eve.

Cheers.

MSPeconomist

More about the location: I too wouldn't call this West End, which I consider to be the area around the Park Hyatt. To me, 22nd and M is just a a commercial area, arguably around the far (western) end of the M Street downtown office area populated with private firms (consulting, law, etc.) rather than government buildings. If you walk (south) toward Washington Circle, there are some nice apartment and condo buildings, so that the area becomes more residential. There's also the GW Hospital area before you get to the Foggy Bottom Metro Station.

BTW, I too remember eating in Blackie's but I was never aware of the INS raids.

Also BTW, IIRC there's a conference center with hotel on the Georgetown campus which I thought was operated by Marriott, but I suspect it might not be open to reservations from the general public. When I first saw the thread title about a Georgetown Marriott, I assumed that it was this property and not the downtown full service Marriott.

CJKatl

The term West End was not used until the garages were torn down and the area around the Park Hyatt was developed, south and east of Rock Creek Park, west of 22nd St, north of M and L Sts. The Marriott predates that by many years. I believe technically the Marriott is actually in the Dupont Circle neighborhood. When I lived on N St we always referred to the neighborhod as Dupont Circle, and Badlands, which was on 22nd south of P St, was considered in Dupont Circle. IIRC, everything east of 22nd St was considered Dupont Circle.

MSPeconomist

I still think of M Street as M Street.

SkiAdcock

Oh for gawd's sake already!

We've determined the property is not in Georgetown proper. The wiki even reflects that & says it's closer to DuPont Circle.

Can we please move on & wait for a trip report on the property. Geesh. If you (generic you) have an actual trip report on the property then please post it. Your fellow FTers would appreciate it.

If you (again, generic you) want to get into a pissing war on what constitutes the West End et al, then take it to the MidAtlantic forum. Geesh.

Cheers.

GUWonder

Can no longer take it to the Washington DC forum.

The University hotel and conference center was Marriott-run for years and years. It used to take public bookings too, even last year IIRC. It was known as the Georgetown University Hotel rather than as a Marriott even while it was advertised in small print at least somewhere that Marriott in some form or another ran the place and the campus dining halls.

Much of M Street NW is not Georgetown. But you can bet that hotels in the West End and even Foggy Bottom at times have tried to sell an affiliation with Georgetown despite not being part of Georgetown. Not much different than hotels a few minutes walk from Times Square advertise themselves with Times Square somehow.

This hotel is in the West End, a place which used to have the closest major commercial movie theater to Wisconsin & M Street NW and was the Georgetown crowd's main (but small), non-artsy walking distance theater for some years.

nevansm

I live across the street from this property and one word of warning is that there is a massive construction project right next door to the hotel. They have incredibly bright lights on all night and seem to start working at 7am m-sat. Specifically avoid north facing rooms. If you're looking for a relaxing property this is not the place to be right now. Give it 4-5 months and it'll be back to the somewhat quiet and cozy west end.