D.C.-based May Riegler Properties and D.C.-based Potomac Investment Properties have secured construction financing to restore a historic Old Town Alexandria hotel.
The building, at Prince and Washington streets, originally operated as the George Mason Hotel from 1926 to 1971, and was most recently office space.
St. Louis-based Twain Financial Partners is providing $59.2 million for construction, through a combination of lease-back financing and federal and state historic tax credit equity. The project is also being funded in part by the City of Alexandria, through an Alexandria Economic Development Partnership bond repayment program.
The Alexandria City Council approved the project in January.
As proposed, the six-story building at 699 Prince St. will be converted into a 134-room hotel with 30,000 square feet of restaurant, meeting and retail space. Construction is scheduled to begin this summer, with completion expected in late 2023.
It will reopen as the Hotel Heron, and be managed by Aparium Hotel Group.
The project’s original redevelopment plans were delayed by the start of the pandemic.
A 2014 Alexandria Times article includes historic details of the original George Mason Hotel, which says the hotel’s ballroom was famous for decades as “the place” to hold major social events in Alexandria.
