The difference is the hotel is a sad amalgamation of entities, two of them governmental that slooooooooow the process down. As someone who has dealth with the Convention Center Authority, and the DC Development wing of the Mayors office seperately, I can’t imagine having to deal with them both at the same time. They are generally populated with people who would be hard pressed building a doghouse, let alone a half billion dollar hotel.

This versus a fully private project, where profit margins dictate schedules, and interfere with possible future leasing, and failure results in embarrasing lawsuits and immediate firing and replacement which is something Clark, nor the developer want.

But, DC is footing 40% of the bills, so that does entitle them to a spot at the table.

The hotel would have been built in half the time if they had simply given the money to Marriot and let them have at it.

They are working on this hotel project 6 days a week! The big difference between the two projects is the hotel goes 9 levels deep. It will have parking, meeting space, a tunnel under 9th street into the convention center, tunnels for all deliveries and trash removal. The ground up will be nothing but hotel rooms, lobby and restaurants. The city center project only has a two or three level parking garage underneath it which is why is was able to start rising up quicker. The hotel is a much more complect project even though it is just one building.