(Washington, DC) Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced today that the District has reached a new agreement with Marriott International to build an 1,150-room Marriott Marquis convention center headquarters hotel at 9th and L Streets, NW, just west of the Washington Convention Center.

“This is going to be a fantastic project that will put us in position to remain a leading destination for large-scale national and international conventions and meetings,” said Mayor Fenty. “This has been a long and challenging process, but Mr. Marriott and I are absolutely committed to building a headquarters hotel and we’ve got a great plan to make it happen.”

Under the new agreement, Marriott will build the hotel on a two-acre site along Ninth Street between Massachusetts Avenue and L Street, which is currently controlled by the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA) and developer Kingdon Gould III. The District is trading land it owns on the site of the old convention center for Gould’s property at the hotel site.

The District will lease Marriott the hotel site for 99 years and Marriott will build and operate the hotel. The District will contribute $134 million in tax increment financing (TIF) that will come from the proceeds of the sale of WCCA-issued bonds. The bonds will be repaid using a portion of the new tax revenue generated by the hotel.

Marriott has agreed to build a hotel that complies with the District’s new green building standards. The company has also agreed to hire District residents to fill at least 51 percent of the new jobs created by the hotel and work closely with certified local, small and disadvantaged businesses. Marriott will also implement a job training program to prepare District residents for jobs at the hotel.

The new hotel will include 100,000 square feet of additional meeting space and at least 400 new parking spaces. The District and Marriott have also executed a room block agreement, which will allow groups to reserve up to 80 percent of the rooms when making bookings.