Renovate-Gate

Washington, D.C.’s fabled Watergate Hotel – the site of the notorious 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters that set off the political scandal that toppled Richard M. Nixon’s presidency – has been sold and will be redeveloped as an “upper-upscale hotel”. According to The Wall Street Journal, Euro Capital Partners, a redevelopment specialist, purchased the 43-year-old, 251-room hotel which has been closed since 2007 and had been foreclosed on by the German bank PB Capital.

“The Watergate is exactly the profile of what we’ve done and redone many times,” according to Jacque Cohen, a Euro Capital Partners principal, “with the difference that the Watergate is even easier” because it is relatively newer.

Renovation plans include a spa, meeting spaces, restaurants and bars that Cohen said would “improve the whole Watergate complex” and the surrounding neighborhood.  Rooms at the Watergate, which is within walking distance of the Kennedy Center and Georgetown, will be priced upwards of $300 a night.  Previous Euro Capital projects have included the Hilton Arc de Triomphe Paris and Washington, D.C.’s Hamilton Crowne Hotel.  The neglected hotel’s multi-million dollar renovation is expected to take at least two years.

Headquartered in Paris and New York, Euro Capital specializes in redeveloping pre-World War II properties into upscale hotels, offices and condominiums.