Marriott Marquis Washington, D.C.

Building on a tight site with top-down construction

The largest hotel in Washington D.C., the Marriott Marquis is a 15-story high rise surrounding an atrium lobby, ground-floor retail and restaurants, a 5,200 square-foot outdoor event terrace and a two-story fitness center. Seven below-grade levels house 105,000 square feet of event space, including three double-height ballrooms, mechanical and back-of-house areas, and parking for 400 cars. The hotel also integrates a renovated historic building.

We provided structural design services to tvsdesign and Cooper Carry for this hotel, which was completed in 2014.

Highlights

• To fit the hotel’s 1.1-million-square-foot program on a tight 100,000-square-foot site and within Washington’s strict height limits required the use of top-down construction.
• The design called for extending the construction 100 feet below grade, which is deeper than any other building in the city.
• While the building is primarily framed with concrete, its seven below-grade levels rely on more than 5,100 tons of structural steel to facilitate its top-down construction method.
• The superstructure construction began while basement levels were still being excavated.