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Luxe Condos with hotel service slated for prime Arlington site
Dan Brendel – Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal
June 26, 2024
A relatively new entrant to the Greater Washington real estate world plans to redevelop the Air & Space Forces Association’s headquarters site in Arlington with luxury condos carrying an international hotel brand.
Taicoon Property Partners LLC plans to tear down the existing building at 1501 Langston Blvd. and build a 94-unit residential building, branded by an unnamed “major, international top-tier hotel company,” according to a conceptual site plan application filed June 25 with Arlington’s planning department.
The company bought the 1980s-era Class B office building at 1501 Langston Blvd. in 2023, and it will be Taicoon’s inaugural development project.
Residents would own their condos, which would feature hotel-like “service with butlers, valets, spa services and high end amenities,” a Taicoon spokesperson told me in an email. The hotel company would “oversee the management of the condominium association to uphold the required superior standards associated with their esteemed name,” according to an application filing.
Numerous hotel companies do branded residences. For example, Marriott International Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) has four properties in Greater Washington: three Ritz-Carlton Residences, two in D.C. and one in Chevy Chase, and a JW Marriott Residences at Reston Station slated to debut in 2025. Paris-based Accor has several in U.S. cities, though none in Greater Washington, per its website.
The undisclosed hotel brand selected Taicoon’s site for its “flagship Virginia location” with proximity to Rosslyn and the George Washington Parkway and “sweeping regional views,” per an application filing.
The proposed new building would weigh in at about 392,000 square feet and rise 11 stories, including a penthouse, over three levels of structured parking with 205 spaces, according to application documents. Non-penthouse units would range from one to three bedrooms, between about 1,100 and 2,900 square feet on average. Six penthouse units would offer about 4,700 square feet on average.
Arlington Land Use Group PLLC is the project’s land use attorney. WDG Architecture and Land Design are its architect and landscape architect, respectively.
Taicoon, formed in 2020 according to Delaware state corporate filings, acquired the existing 85,000-square-foot office from the Air & Space Forces Association for $16.25 million last June. The association is anticipated to vacate the building this summer, headed for its new digs in Federal Realty Investment Trust’s (NYSE: FRT) Westpost at National Landing. The building’s other tenants will move out by December 2026, per a Taicoon press release.
The building at 1501 Langston Blvd. in Arlington
AIR & SPACE FORCES ASSOCIATION
The new hotel-branded condo building would also include a small space that’ll serve as a gallery, open to the public, of donated memorabilia “to commemorate the longstanding presence and contributions of members of the Air Force in our community,” an application document says.
Taicoon, helmed by CEO Hai Chien Wang, formerly a Sentinel Real Estate Corp. vice president, also owns an aging downtown D.C. office building, which it acquired for a bargain from BlackRock in April.
