| Hilton Washington DC National Mall The Wharf | |
|---|---|
 Looking east across L'Enfant Plaza at the Hilton Washington DC National Mall | |
  Location within Washington, D.C. | |
| General information | |
| Location | 480 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Coordinates | 38°53′2″N 77°1′26″W / 38.88389°N 77.02389°W |
| Opening | May 31, 1973 |
| Owner | L’Enfant DC Hotel LLC |
| Management | Hilton Hotels |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 6 (building: 12)[1] |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Vlastimil Koubek |
| Developer | L'Enfant Plaza Corp. and Loews Hotels |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 367[2] |
| Number of suites | 10 |
| Number of restaurants | 2 |
| Website | |
| www3 | |
The Hilton Washington DC National Mall The Wharf, previously known as the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, is a 367-room hotel located on the top four floors of a 12-story mixed-use building in downtown Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was designed by architect Vlastimil Koubek, and was opened on May 31, 1973, as the Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel,[3] named after Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first surveyor and designer of the street layout of the city.
The hotel sits atop L'Enfant Plaza, an esplanade and plaza structure erected above a highway and a parking garage in the Southwest quadrant of the District of Columbia. The plaza and hotel were approved in 1955, but construction did not begin on the plaza (on which the hotel sits) until 1965. The plaza and esplanade were completed in 1968. The start of construction on the hotel was delayed three years, and was completed in May 1973. The construction led to a lawsuit after it was found that the foundation of an adjoining structure had encroached on the hotel's property. The hotel suffered a serious fire in 1975 that claimed the lives of two people.
L'Enfant Plaza Corp., which owned the hotel, sold the structure to Sarakreek Holdings in 1998, which in turn sold it to the JBG Companies in 2003. A legal battle ensued over the hotel's ownership. The hotel's original operator, Loews Hotels, was replaced after thirty-two years by Crestline Hotels & Resorts in 2005, which was in turn replaced by the Davidson Hotel Company in 2010.
The hotel closed on December 3, 2013, for what was originally intended to be a year-long overhaul and upgrade of the entire property.[4][5] It reopened on April 1, 2019, as the Hilton Washington DC National Mall.[6]
- ^ JBG Companies. L'Enfant Plaza Electronic Tenant's Handbook. Red Hand LLC and The Electronic Tenant Handbook, 2007, p. 22. Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2012-07-19.
- ^ "Hilton Washington DC National Mall The Wharf". Hilton.
- ^ "Loews Hotels Expands". The New York Times. June 1, 1973.
- ^ Sernovitz, Daniel J. "L'Enfant Plaza Hotel Eyed for Closure, Major Overhaul" Washington Business Journal. October 18, 2013. Accessed 2013-10-19.
- ^ Cooper, Rebecca. "L'Enfant Plaza Hotel's New Owner Hopes to Begin Renovation This Spring." Washington Business Journal. January 23, 2014. Accessed 2014-01-23.
- ^ "National Mall Hotel - HIlton Washington DC National MallHilton Washington DC National Mall". Archived from the original on 2017-07-17. Retrieved 2017-05-10.