Constitution Square Signs on Hotel Flag

WASHINGTON, DC-Dirt moved yesterday at NoMA’s splashiest mixed-use project to date, Constitution Square, which is being designed to Gold LEED standards. Given its recent history–it surprised the DC real estate community by snagging an enviable 521,000-sf Department of Justice lease one month ago that it is using to anchor the 1.6-million-sf development–it could almost be expected that the developers took the opportunity to make an unexpected announcement at the ground breaking.

The first phase of the project will now also include a 204-room Hilton Garden Inn Hotel, to be owned and operated by an affiliate of OTO Development of Spartanburg, SC. According to Corry Oakes, CEO of OTO Development, this will be the company’s first hotel in the District. “We hope and expect to develop more in the future,” he says.

Constitution Square is a joint development between StonebridgeCarras of Bethesda, MD and Walton Street Capital of Chicago. Darian LeBlanc, Zeke Dodson and Mark Sullivan of Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers, are handling the leasing and marketing for the office portion of the project, which was designed by HOK Architects of Washington, DC. JBG Rosenfeld Retail of Chevy Chase, MD is the leasing agent for Constitution Square’s retail space. The residential building, grocery store, and hotel were designed by SK&I Architectural Design Group of Washington, DC.

Constitution Square, phase one of which is scheduled to deliver in 2010, is located next to the New York Avenue Metro station at First and M Streets, N.E. It will include One Constitution Square, with 340,000-sf of speculative office space; Two Constitution Square, with 589,000-sf of class A office space, of which 521,000 sf is preleased to the Justice Department; a 50,000-sf Harris Teeter grocery store; 30,000 sf of additional retail space; a residential building with 440 apartment units; and, now, a 204-key Hilton Garden Inn Hotel.