Washington, DC – The Board of Directors of the Washington Convention Center Authority agreed on Dec. 3rd to expand the meeting and ballroom capacity of the convention center by 75,000 square feet. It will also develop and own a 1,200-room headquarters hotel with 100,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space.
“This is a tremendous step forward,” says Tom Mobley, Jr., WCCA General Manager and Chief Executive Officer. “Our team can now move forward with the necessary work to ensure that the headquarters hotel and convention center expansion meets the programmatic needs expressed by our customers.”
WCCA staff will immediately start six months of intensive pre-development activities. Several issues for the hotel at this site must be resolved, including land acquisition, cost, design, historic preservation and financing.
The Board says that if the development of the hotel at that site becomes unmanageable, the executive office of Mayor Anthony A. Williams agreed to reserve space at the old convention center site, just a block away, for the hotel project. (See related story, “Gone in (Less Than) 60 Seconds.”)
The Washington, DC Convention Center currently offers 725,000 square feet of column-free, prime exhibit space and 150,000 square feet of meeting space.
Reach Tom Mobley at (202) 249-3350 or tmobley@dcconvention.com.
