{"id":648,"date":"2021-05-06T11:56:03","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T11:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/?p=648"},"modified":"2021-06-01T22:08:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T22:08:00","slug":"alert-wardman-to-affordable-housing-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/dc\/648","title":{"rendered":"Alert:: Wardman to Affordable Housing: Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Wardman Hotel Strategy Team <\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
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For release: May 5, 2021<\/div>\n
Contact: Gail Sonnemann, 202-286-0845, gsonnemann@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/div>\n
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A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n
Converting the Wardman to Affordable Housing <\/strong><\/div>\n
The recent bankruptcy of the former Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, NW, in upper northwest, DC, has stimulated much discussion about converting the 1,100-room facility into affordable housing. One of the responses has been the formation of the Wardman Hotel Strategy Team (WHST), an advocacy group of neighbors from Woodley Park, Ward 3, and across DC working with interested parties to convert the Wardman Hotel into a campus with affordable housing, workforce development, and other community amenities.<\/div>\n
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To stimulate interest in the hotel-to-housing potential, WHST has sponsored a series of walkarounds of the property.\u00a0 Led by a noted local architect, they have demonstrated the promise of the site\u201416 landscaped acres right next to the Woodley Park Metro Station.\u00a0 In addition to guest rooms, the hotel offers a banquet-sized catering kitchen, ballrooms, and dining and retail spaces, all relatively easy to convert into a new residential community integrated with the surrounding neighborhood, including the adjacent Oyster Bi-Lingual Elementary School.\u00a0 WHST has met with developers, both non- and for-profit, financiers, architects, city officials and Woodley Park residents.<\/div>\n
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Mayor Bowser and Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh have spoken about the Wardman conversion. The Mayor told the Woodley Park Community Association: \u201cWe could make an investment to buy-down affordable units\u2026in line with our vision for having more affordable units in more neighborhoods in the city. [However], it\u2019s usually a very costly option in neighborhoods like yours\u2026but it is possible.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Councilmember Cheh said she has sent a note to the Mayor asking her people \u201cto take a look\u201d at the Wardman conversion possibility, adding that \u201cthe amount of money is probably going to be too high.\u201d<\/div>\n
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“We just can\u2019t let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip through our fingers,\u201d said Margaret Dwyer.\u00a0 \u201cWhen will we ever have a large building with the infrastructure ready for an imaginative and humane repurposing as housing for those most in need? We are ready to work with Councilmember Cheh, the Bowser Administration and all other interested parties to create a Wardman campus that\u2019s part of the Woodley Park neighborhood and that weaves lower income households into an existing community to uplift both.\u201d<\/div>\n
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DC for Reasonable Development
(202) 656-5874
www.dc4reason.org<\/a><\/div>\n
fb.me\/dc4reality<\/a><\/div>\n
twitter.com\/dc4reality<\/a><\/p>\n

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Wardman Hotel Strategy Team \u00a0 For release: May 5, 2021 Contact: Gail Sonnemann, 202-286-0845, gsonnemann@gmail.com \u00a0 A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity Converting the Wardman to Affordable Housing The recent bankruptcy of the former Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, NW, in upper northwest, DC, has stimulated much discussion about converting the 1,100-room facility into affordable housing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,1,36,67,49,5,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-affordable-housing","category-citywide","category-dc","category-homelessness","category-planning","category-public-property","category-w3","category-wardman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":690,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions\/690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}