The way most people see the Hilton. Photo by bluhousworker on Flickr.

I’ve been researching the Hilton hotel’s expansion plans and thinking hard about its landmarking. I endorsed landmarking the HUD building, but in contrast, the Hilton’s qualification under the landmark critera is questionable at best. Still, I pondered that perhaps the parking exemption might be a worthwhile tradeoff.

After finding out more about the project, I’ve come down against landmarking. We should not landmark this building. I’ll be encouraging the Dupont Circle ANC to oppose the landmark nomination at tonight’s meeting, and urging HPRB to reject it when they meet this month.

Landmarking would preserve and exacerbate the loading problems.

The biggest concern of community members is loading. When the Hilton was built, a freeway was planned along Florida Avenue from the West End and across to U Street; 19th Street would have been a major access road with ramps, and for this reason the Hilton built loading docks on 19th instead of to the south.

Instead, the freeway was cancelled and 19th Street stayed a neighborhood street. Today, the loading docks are way too small for modern trucks. Long trucks stick out into the sidewalk, trucks have to back up and do 9-point turns to get in and out, and there is constant noise affecting residents.

If the Hilton builds a new condo tower, they will have to improve the loading, which doesn’t meet a host of codes today. But if they win landmark status, they may be exempt. That would worsen the situation for the neighborhood.

Landmarking wouldn’t help parking.

The Adams Morgan ANC did urge the Hilton to build less parking. However, “less” is relative. According to Ann Hargrove, the original plans called for way too much parking—as much as 2-3 spaces per unit. In contrast, the current hotel has less parking than zoning demands. The Adams Morgan ANC resolution only called for the Hilton to reallocate its excessive new parking to provide more for employees and guests and less for residents.

We shouldn’t be mandating parking at all, and the Hilton developers’ zeal for 2-3 spaces per unit is even a good argument for a parking maximum. The developers will certainly want to build some, and that’s fine. It doesn’t look like they are seeking less parking than zoning requires (if my understanding is correct, the hotel keeps its grandfathered status including its lower amount of parking). Getting an exemption because of historic preservation, therefore, may not help anything.

Residents complain that employees park on the street. The solution to this, though, is not to provide lots of garage space, but instead to implement performance parking in the area. Instead of letting anyone park for free all night and all weekend, charge visitors from outside the neighborhood a modest but sufficient amount to discourage driving by people who have the choice while also ensuring adequate spaces for people who don’t.

The Hilton should keep a pay garage for employees who want to pay. Instead of giving out free parking, they can set up a parking cash-out where the employee gets the cash value of the free parking space they’re not using. That way, the hotel can rent the space at market to a visitor or a resident, or just decide to build less in the first place.

The building is not worthy of preservation.

Preservationists fought against this building when it was constructed. It was designed for a freeway that we thankfully stopped. Neighbors called it the “buzzard”. It’s incompatible with the neighborhood, and while it’s surrounded on all sides by historic districts, it was left out of all three four (Dupont, Kalorama Triangle, Sheridan-Kalorama, and Washington Heights).

It deadens the streets around it. Each side is either a high, landscaped berm, a loading dock, or a driveway entrance. It’s entirely built around automobile access and not around pedestrian access. One block south is the lively Connecticut Avenue retail corridor, and just to the north is the lively Columbia Road retail corridor, but walk between them and you feel like you’ve been transported to Tyson’s Corner for a moment.

It’s not that historic.

As I outlined earlier, the case for landmarking based on the criteria is shaky. It’s not a work of a creative master: this architect is not well-known and created many hotels like this one. It’s only the site of a minor historic event, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, and the lobby layout that made the attempt possible no longer exists. And while it embodies a specific style, the HUD building landmarked last month represents a much stronger example.

Landmarking is unnecessary.

Given its grandfathered status, no owner is going to tear it down. Therefore, it’s protected by the best preservation of all: economic self-interest. But if, one day, there’s reason to tear it down, we should not have the force of law behind the proposition that this building is worth saving.