Four-Star Condos

Four-Star Condos
By Mary Clare Fleury

A doorman and room service for a condo? Developers are courting buyers with the amenities of a four-star hotel.

At the foot of Key Bridge in Rosslyn, two 300-foot glass towers are rising from the banks of the Potomac. Architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners—cofounded by I.M. Pei and renowned for the East Building of the National Gallery of Art—designed the soaring contemporary buildings. Called Waterview, the property opens over the next several months with a fitness center, two restaurants, and a gourmet wine-and-cheese shop.

One of the towers will be home to the Hotel Palomar and, above the hotel, 133 condominiums. Condo owners will share the hotel’s amenities, including room and maid service, in-residence spa treatments, dry-cleaning and shoe-shining services, and a concierge who can make dinner reservations or charter a yacht. Residents will pay for services à la carte.

Similar hotel/condo projects are filling Washington’s development pipeline. In Alexandria, the Jamieson’s 79 condominiums will sit atop a new Westin Hotel. Residents will be able to use the hotel’s pool and fitness center, valet parking, housekeeping and room service, and catering. The Jamieson expects move-ins to begin before the end of the year.

In DC’s Woodley Park, Chevy Chase development company JBG is renovating the historic Wardman Park Hotel and adding a condo building where residents will have privileges at the hotel. And near Dupont Circle, the Washington Hilton is talking with DC officials about adding condos as part of a $150-million renovation.

William Rich of real-estate research firm Delta Associates says hotel/condos draw urbanites who travel frequently, don’t spend a lot of time at home, and don’t like to cook or worry about mowing the lawn. Downsizing empty-nesters make up a big chunk of the market, as do young professionals with no children.

“Hotel/condos target those who don’t want to have to worry about any type of maintenance,” says Rich.

The idea of living in a hotel is not new. In the early 20th century, luxury hotels like the Waldorf-Astoria and the Plaza in Manhattan had many full-time residents, although most were renters, not owners. In the 1980s, the Watergate in Foggy Bottom earned the nickname “White House West” for the Reagan friends and allies from California who lived in the hotel for months at a time.

The Ritz-Carlton introduced Washington to hotel-affiliated condos when it opened its Ritz-Carlton Residences, first in the West End in 2000 then in Georgetown in 2003. Ritz targeted Washington’s wealthy—names like Republican insider Tom Korologos and former Hewlett-Packard head Carly Fiorina—and offered amenities such as libraries, butlers, and staff quarters. Today the bulk of the condos in the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown are worth more than $2 million.

Joe Long, an executive at Kimpton Hotels—the boutique chain that manages Hotel Palomar—says that hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons began incorporating residential components more than ten years ago to help finance the running of a five-star hotel.

“In the last five years, a lot of developers have recognized that buyers are interested in that level of service but may not be able to afford the super high end,” says Long. As a result, such hotels as Kimpton, Westin, and Marriott have gotten into the game.

Although the new condos can be expensive—prices in the Waterview top $5 million—they also offer more-affordable units. Waterview prices start in the $400,000s; Jamieson units are priced from the high $300,000s.

Source: Washingtonian. View Article.

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