At this week’s meeting, WMATA’s Planning, Development and Real Estate Committee will consider a proposal to enter into an agreement with Marriott to build a 162-room hotel on the Prince George’s Plaza Metro station site (see map). Originally, the site was to have a free-standing bank, which is not a very high-density use of land near a Metro station. This is much better.

View larger map.

To secure a loan to build the hotel, Marriott needs to show its lenders that there is “adequate” parking for guests. And lenders’ formulae often demand just as much parking around transit sites as in auto-dependent areas, since lenders have limited experience with TOD. Some of the hotel’s parking will go in the existing retail parking garage, but they also need some additional guest spaces. Rather than build additional parking, the hotel has proposed using 45 of Metro’s 1,068 garage spaces, which are currently only 51% occupied during the peak period.

Marriott will pay to install exit gates that will allow hotel guests to leave using hotel cards, and will pay Metro 150% of the current day parking rate per guest that uses the lot. Spaces will be first-come, first-served, not reserved for guests. If the parking lot starts getting full during the peak period, Metro has the option to cancel the agreement.

The presentation also has some great maps showing the amount of proposed transit oriented development at this metro station:

I think this is win-win-win. Metro gets development on its property, more riders (the station is only 20 minutes away from downtown), and revenue from an underutilized parking garage. Marriott reduces its cost to build new parking spaces and gets to promote its hotel as being convenient to Metro and shops, potentially increasing the room rate. And the hotel customers get parking that’s convenient to both Metro and their hotel. It’ll also be interesting to whether the hotel ends up using fewer of these parking spaces than expected, if many hotel patrons take Metro and don’t rent cars.