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Not much new came out of a Saturday ANC 1C planning and zoning committee meeting on the proposed Edition hotel for Adams Morgan (the design, apparently, hasn’t changed significantly since it was first presented three years ago). But developer Brian Friedman did give a date certain by which he plans to file his planned unit development application with the Zoning Commission: July 29th.
Most of the meeting was spent re-arguing the need for the project’s $46 million tax abatement, which passed at the tail end of the Council’s session last year. On the issue at hand, whether the nine-story hotel should receive approval from the Zoning Commission, opponents argued that its size and hotel use was prohibited by the Reed-Cooke zoning overlay (as are bars, restaurants, and lots of other things that already exist in Adams Morgan).
Hopefully, before the application is filed, the neighborhood will learn more about how the hotel can be expected to impact local property taxes, rents, and revenues for retail and restaurants from a study underway at the Office of Planning.
Meanwhile, Friedman already has an operator lined up for the hotel’s bar and restaurant, as well as for the health club/spa and pool, who wish to remain anonymous. “They don’t want to be brought down in all these local politics,” Friedman said, somewhat impolitically.