MCR Opens New Courtyard by Marriott in Northern Virginia

By Gail Kalinoski

Courtyard by Marriott Dulles Airport Herndon

MCR is betting that Amazon chooses Northern Virginia for its second headquarters and has opened a new 187-key Courtyard by Marriott Dulles Airport Herndon in Herndon, Va., to capitalize on it if the region gets the coveted HQ2. The Washington, D.C., metro area, including Northern Virginia, is among the leading HQ2 locations being considered by Amazon.

“We developed the Courtyard by Marriott Dulles Airport with Amazon.com in mind,” Tyler Morse, CEO & managing partner of MCR and MORSE Development, said in a prepared statement. “In our hotel, the area’s tech work force will have flexible spaces and free, lightning-fast Wi-Fi to stream, shop and work online.”

Located at 13715 Sayward Blvd., the six-story hotel is five miles from Washington Dulles International Airport and along the technology corridor dubbed “the Silicon Valley of the East.” Northern Virginia has the second-largest concentration of technology jobs in any major market, serving eight Fortune 500 companies and Defense Department contracts.

Courtyard by Marriott Dulles Airport Herndon

Herndon is home to more than 10 million square feet of data centers and hosts 70 percent of the world’s Internet traffic each day. CBRE’s latest U.S. Data Center Trends Report cited Northern Virginia as the most active data center market, with net absorption of 100 MW in the first half of 2018. Hyperscale users like Facebook are driving the demand in Northern Virginia, where cloud users accounted for 65 percent of the market’s net absorption, according to CBRE.

Another important factor consideration in locating the hotel at Herndon: the Washington Metro Silver Line will be connecting Herndon to Dulles International Airport by 2020. The hotel will provide a free airport shuttle and the business center will have computer stations designed to print airline boarding passes and check flight status.

Other hotel features include a personal device charging station in the lobby and individual booths with flat-screen TVs; The Bistro, which serves breakfast and dinner, snacks, cocktails and Starbucks coffee; a 24-hour fitness center; 910 square feet of meeting space for as many as 90 people; and on-site laundry service.

MCR is the sixth-largest hotel owner-operator in the U.S. and has invested in and developed 104 hotel properties with more than 12,000 guestrooms in 27 states. MCR’s hotels are operated under 11 brands.

MCR’s deals and developments

In May, MCR acquired three Hilton-branded hotels in Champaign, Ill.,—the Home2 Suites by Hilton with 104 suites; The Hilton Garden Inn Champaign/Urbana with 99 guestrooms; and Homewood Suites by Hilton with 98 suites.

Also in May, MCR purchased the 88-key Hilton Garden Inn Cincinnati Northeast in Loveland, Ohio, and also took over management duties. In April, the company acquired the 136-key  SpringHill Suites by Marriott Richmond, North Glenn Allen in Glenn Allen, Va., for $10.9 million.

In one of its most high-profile projects, MCR is repurposing the former iconic TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York into a 512-guestroom hotel. When it is completed in early 2019, the TWA Hotel will also have 50,000 square feet of state-of-the-art meeting and event space as well as a variety of high-quality food, beverage and retail offerings.

Image courtesy of MCR