Grand Hyatt Washington
| Grand Hyatt Washington | |
|---|---|
 |
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| General information | |
| Location | 1000 H Street NW, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Coordinates | 38°53′58″N 77°01′36″W / 38.899467°N 77.026532°WCoordinates: 38°53′58″N 77°01′36″W / 38.899467°N 77.026532°W |
| Opening | June 9, 1987 |
| Owner | Host Hotels & Resorts |
| Management | Hyatt Hotels Corporation |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 12 above-ground; five below-ground |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | RTKL Associates |
| Developer | Quadrangle Development Corp. |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 888 |
| Website | |
| http://washington.grand.hyatt.com/ | |
Grand Hyatt Washington is a hotel in Washington, D.C., in the United States. The 888-room hotel, located at 1000 H Street NW, primarily serves tourist and business travel. From the time the hotel opened until 2003, it was directly across from the Washington Convention Center and served as a "convention headquarters" hotel for many conventions. The convention center closed, and was demolished in 2004. CityCenterDC, a major office, residential, and retail complex, now occupies the site.
Quadrangle Development broke ground for the Grand Hyatt Hotel on February 21, 1985. The site was directly across the street from the Washington Convention Center. The structure was designed by RTKL Associates, an architectural firm based in Annapolis, Maryland. The hotel featured a vast atrium over the lobby that ran to the roof. The inspiration for the atrium was a similar structure designed by John C. Portman, Jr. and built in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1960s. The ground floor of the atrium was designed to feature a waterfall and fish lagoon, designed by engineer Howard Fields. At the time of the groundbreaking, planners expected the hotel to have 950 rooms and cost $130 million to construct. By June, the hotel's room count had dropped to 910, and by July the cost had soared to $150 million. By December 1986, the room count had fallen to 907, and a 7,000-square-foot (650 m2) water feature (lagoon and waterfall) had been added to the atrium.
As constructed, the hotel had 907 rooms, and was the city's third-largest hotel. The hotel cost $140 million to build, which included a $1 million, 13-story skylit atrium above the lobby. The water feature in the lobby consisted of a waterfall which began 35 feet (11 m) above the lobby and ended 75 feet (23 m) below it. The waterfall helped fill and circulate water in a 27,000 US gallons (100,000 L) lagoon.
The hotel had five below-ground floors, with the lagoon on the first below-ground level. Banquet space, ballrooms, and meeting rooms existed on the second to fifth below-ground levels. The lobby occupied the first floor. Slightly raised platforms and bridges connected various parts of the lobby to one another, with stairs and escalators, placed at diagonals to H Street NW, led to the below-ground levels. The structure had double-loaded corridors, which meant that guest rooms either faced inward at the atrium or outward at the city. All inward-facing rooms had balconies overlooking the atrium. The north walls of the atrium were decorated with Mediterranean-style pilasters, with a Mediterranean-style arcade formed by segmental arches on the first and second floor. A similar design motif existed on the east and west sides of the atrium, which were stepped back from the first below-ground level. Campanile-like towers, which served as structural supports for the lobby elevators, were set against the south wall. Two gift shops graced the lobby.
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