Arlo Washington DC

Arlo Washington DC opened November 18, 2024 at 333 G Street NW, the lifestyle brand's seventh property and its first in the nation's capital. The 445-room hotel wraps the 1888 Harrison Apartments — Washington's oldest surviving apartment building — into a new twelve-story addition, pairing a Romanesque Revival landmark with a full contemporary program of restaurant, rooftop bar and pool.

The place

The hotel occupies a full city block in Judiciary Square, four blocks from Union Station and under a mile from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Penn Quarter and Capitol Hill are both within walking distance, putting guests close to the National Mall, the Smithsonian museums and downtown's convention and government corridor. It is a location built for a working city rather than a scenic one — closer to federal buildings, law offices and the convention hall than to any single tourist strip — which suits a 445-room property aimed as much at conference and government travel as at leisure stays.

The concept

The project's premise is architectural before it is hospitality: the Harrison Apartments, a Romanesque Revival structure built in 1888 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1994, had sat vacant for years before Arlo Hotels acquired it along with the adjacent empty lot. Rather than restore it as a standalone building, Arlo Hotels and architecture firm Architecture Incorporated joined it to a new twelve-story block, keeping the historic facade and vaulted ceilings, exposed brick and archways in that wing while the addition is deliberately more minimalist. Interior design is by Meyer Davis, the studio behind Arlo's Midtown and Wynwood properties, which carried over the brand's recognizable palette of light-toned woods, custom grid lighting and an oak reception desk, extended here with walnut flooring, white oak furniture, built-in window seats and black-and-white penny-tiled bathrooms across all 445 rooms and suites. At 229,846 square feet, the hotel is sized more like a convention property than a boutique one, with an interior courtyard and roughly 4,300 square feet of event space split across five meeting rooms. That scale, married to a historic-preservation story and a design language borrowed from Arlo's smaller New York and Miami hotels, is the hotel's core bet: an upscale-lifestyle experience built to also carry the group and conference business that downtown DC properties depend on.

Dining & wellness

Arrels, the ground-floor restaurant, is run by chef Pepe Moncayo and serves Spanish cuisine built around open-fire cooking, with vegetarian and vegan options across brunch, lunch and dinner. Bodega by Arrels is the adjoining café and lobby lounge, serving coffee, pastries and grab-and-go food to guests and neighborhood locals. On the roof, ART DC is an indoor-outdoor bar and lounge with a seasonal pool and a chef-curated menu, positioned as one of the few hotel rooftops in the area with both a pool and direct views of the Capitol and the Washington Monument.