Union to employees: Marriott Wardman Park Hotel may close after storied, 102-year run

Five Washington Marriott Wardman Park employees tell 7 On Your Side that the storied, 102-year-old hotel is expected to go out of business this summer.

On Tuesday, Brahim Abouaraine, 58, of Falls Church, Muluberhan Teffera, 62, of Gaithersburg, Mulugete Ambaye, 56, of Silver Spring, Paul Chiduzo, 60, of Silver Spring, and Samson Solomon, 60, of Silver Spring, met on the grassy knoll in front of the historic property. The five unionized employees have collectively worked at the Marriott Wardman Park for nearly 160 years.

"This is my home... I was ready to retire in a few years, and for me, it is a bombshell," said Teffera who works as a banquet server and earns $23 per hour, plus commission. "I need the health insurance. My husband just retired."

Last Friday, Teffera heard a rumor that the 1,153-room hotel — which has been closed since mid-March because of COVID — would shutter for good. On Monday, Teffera explained she received an "emergency" text directing her to a Zoom teleconference with Local 25 leadership. The call confirmed her worst fears.

According to Teffera, Local 25 Executive Secretary-Treasurer John Boardman announced that all indications point to Marriott and Wardman Park majority-equity owner, Pacific Life Insurance Company, formally ceasing operations on or around August 21. The Local 25 teleconference lasted around 45 minutes. A second union call was conducted in Spanish.

As Samson Solomon understood it, the hotel plans to provide severance to its more than 525 Local 25 employees, but that multi-tiered pyramid is capped at 10 weeks of pay. Solomon, who has worked at the high-end hotel since 1980, called the current proposal unjust.

"We should get paid according to how many years we served this company," argued Solomon who is a doorman. "They cannot just tell us, 'This is the maximum we're going to pay, 10 weeks.' That's not fair."

BOOKENDED BY GLOBAL PANDEMICS

Located at 2600 Woodley Road NW, the Wardman Park Hotel has been serving visitors since 1918. It opened during the Spanish flu, and in the name of socially distancing, held no grand ceremony. Ironically enough, the hotel could very well go dark during the COVID pandemic, 102 years later.

In 1928, the hotel added an eight-story, 350-room annex. Named Wardman Tower, it is the only remaining portion of the original hotel. Floors three to eight were recently converted into 32 luxury condominiums. Six units are currently for sale at price points between $2 and $8 million. Floors one and two remain part of the hotel. The Wardman Tower is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In the 1950s, Sheraton Hotels purchased the property and renamed it the Sheraton-Park Hotel. Under Sheraton's purview, the hotel added ballrooms to attract group gatherings and conventions.

By 1977, the main portion of the hotel was nearing 60 years old. Sheraton opted to demolish the original 1918 structure, replacing it with a modern, brick tower, which opened in 1980 as the Sheraton Washington Hotel. Marriott International assumed management of the property in 1998, switching the name to the current Washington Marriott Wardman Park moniker.

Over the last century, the hotel has been a temporary home to former presidents Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, former vice president Spiro Agnew, former U.S. Senators Barry Goldwater and Bob Dole, plus many other politicians and dignitaries.

THE CHANGING CONVENTION LANDSCAPE

Hospitality industry insiders explain that Upper Northwest hotels, such as the Marriott Wardman Park and Omni Shoreham Hotel, have struggled over the last decade or so to compete with the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The 2.3 million-square-foot facility in Downtown D.C. came online in 2003. When the Marriott Marquis Washington opened beside the convention center in 2014, it not only snagged the title of most hotel rooms in the District (1,175), it also added more competition to the already-crowded hotel scene.

Even so, the Marriott Wardman Park continued to book dozens of conventions each year, and quite notably, hosted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

BARACK, BILL, RONALD, AND MORE...

Wearing a red bandana around her neck, Teffera recalled serving Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, at various functions over her 30 years at the Marriott Wardman Park. Her list of D.C. standouts also includes CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, plus U.S. Supreme Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"This is such an important part of D.C. history... I will go with the flow but it's going to be very hard to find a job now, especially being 62," the wife and mother-of-two adult children concluded.

Local 25 represents 7,500 hotel, restaurant, and casino workers at more than 40 locations across the DMV. Those locations include the Hay Adams Hotel in NW, the National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George's County, and the Trump International Hotel Washington D.C. Union members include banquet, concierge, front desk, housekeeping, laundry, room service, and valet staff.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Bethesda-based Marriott acknowledged the "potential" dissolving of the Wardman Park Hotel but stressed that nothing has been finalized.

"Marriott International has provided advance notice to employees, government officials, and union officials about a potential closure of the Washington Marriott Wardman Park. The hotel has been temporarily closed since March. At this time, no decision has been made about the hotel’s future operation and reopening, as discussions are ongoing," wrote Casey Kennett, a Marriott International spokeswoman.