News & Politics

W Washington DC Hotel Is Being Sold and Rebranded

The "W" is expected to be removed in August.

"W / Hotel Washington" by NCinDC is licensed with CC BY-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

The W Washington D.C., one of the city’s most iconic hotels, is being sold and rebranded, according to a report in the Washington Business Journal. 

The 104-year-old hotel is owned by an affiliate of the Investment Corp. of Dubai, which, according to the Business Journal, is now is the process of selling the property to an organization controlled by Pimco, the California-based wealth management giant. 

As part of the transaction, the hotel will disassociate from Marriott, thereby losing the W brand that has marked the hotel since 2007. The deal has not been finalized, but the “W” is expected to be removed from the hotel’s name in August, according to the Business Journal. 

No sale price or closing date was disclosed.

The hotel, formerly called the Hotel Washington, is perhaps best known to locals for its legendary roof deck, which looks out over the White House and Treasury Department and is regularly booked for swank parties such as the one The New Yorker used to throw before the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner (at least back in the pre-Trump years, before the parties were curtailed).

“We are disappointed that the new owners of the W Washington D.C. have decided to run the hotel as an independent,” a Marriott spokesperson told the newspaper. “We wish them the best in this next chapter for the storied property.”

With 326 rooms, the hotel also just completed a $50 million renovation of the property.

Correction: a previous version of this story reported that the hotel had undergone a $50 billion renovation. That figure was incorrect. The hotel had undergone a $50 million renovation. The story has been updated.

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Senior Writer

Luke Mullins is a senior writer at Washingtonian magazine focusing on the people and institutions that control the city’s levers of power. He has written about the Koch Brothers’ attempt to take over The Cato Institute, David Gregory’s ouster as moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, the collapse of Washington’s Metro system, and the conflict that split apart the founders of Politico.