Owner Planning Office-To-Hotel Conversion In D.C. Lands $34M Loan
An investor that purchased a vacant office building near D.C.'s Judiciary Square at a foreclosure auction last year with plans for a hotel conversion has secured a construction loan.
Houston-based private equity firm Dauntless Capital Partners obtained a $34.4M construction loan from Bethesda-based Artemis Real Estate Partners connected to the office property at 601 Indiana Ave. NW., according to documents filed this week with the D.C. Recorder of Deeds.
In December, Urban Turf reported that the office building was slated for a conversion to a 122-room hotel, after Calco Hospitality presented the vision to the local advisory neighborhood commission. The Washington Business Journal reported that same month that the property had been sold at a foreclosure auction for $8.5M to a buyer under the name 601 Indiana LLC.
The company behind that LLC was unknown at the time, but this week's deed records show it was Dauntless.
Dauntless, Artemis and Calco didn't respond to Bisnow’s requests for comment.
D.C.'s Department of Buildings website shows plan documents were filed for the project last month, but they aren't accessible through its system.
The office building at 601 Indiana Ave. and an adjacent building were occupied by three related agencies, two of which are in the process of consolidating at 501 Third St. NW.
Dauntless is a private equity affiliate of Twin Bridges Hospitality, which is led by the grandson of former Marriott CEO Bill Marriott. The firm has made other D.C.-area hotel acquisitions over the past few years.
In January 2024, Dauntless purchased the 343-room Crystal City Marriott from JBG Smith for $66M.
That came after its summer 2023 acquisition of Donohoe Cos.’ 216-room Hilton Garden Inn Bethesda Downtown. Dauntless paid $36.6M for the property, on which it completed a $4M renovation early this year.
And at the end of 2021, it acquired two of Douglas Development Corp.’s Marriott-branded hotels in D.C. for a combined $152M.
At Bisnow’s D.C. Capital Markets and Finance Summit last week, Artemis Real Estate Partners principal Michael Vu said onstage that the firm was looking to take senior positions in the capital stack in the area as it works through some of the federal turmoil.
Vu said that Artemis took a senior lender position for an office-to-hotel conversion in the region, but he didn't specify whether it was for this project, and he didn't respond to Bisnow's request for comment.
