Buzzy The Line DC Hotel Scheduled For Foreclosure Auction
The lender behind Adams Morgan's popular The Line DC hotel is bringing the property up for auction.
Acore Capital retained JLL to market the property at 1770 Euclid St. NW, and a public auction has been scheduled for Jan. 23 at 11 a.m. ET, according to marketing documents obtained by Bisnow. The auction is planned to be held in front of a New York City courthouse and on a live videoconferencing platform.
The 220-room hotel opened in 2017 in a redevelopment of the former First Christ of Scientist Church. The 110-year-old church building features 60-foot vaulted ceilings and a seating area with the hotel's food and beverage offerings, and the rooms are in a new building next door.
The project received an $80M loan in 2016 from Deutsche Bank, and in 2019 it was refinanced with an $86M loan from Acore Capital, according to D.C. deed records.
The hotel was developed by Sydell Group, Foxhall Partners and Friedman Capital, and Square Mile Capital, which later became part of Affinius Capital, was an investor. JLL's notice of a public auction named the hotel's owner as Adams Morgan Hotel Member LLC.
Affinus' parent company, USAA, lists Adams Morgan Hotel Member LLC as one of its holding companies, according to securities filings, which specify that USAA is the general partner in the entity.
Affinius, Sydell, Friedman, Acore and JLL didn't respond to requests for comment in time for publication. Matt Wexler, a former managing partner at Foxhall who was an early investor in the hotel, provided a statement on the property going to auction.
"Unfortunately, the reality is that the hotel's financial performance did not meet expectations," Wexler said. "While being part of the development team was an absolute privilege and leading the effort to get the project entitled and built is an accomplishment I will always be proud of, the Line hotel is a textbook example of grand ambition coupled with overimprovement, guided by a flawed partnership that was led by brand builders and not investors. I sincerely hope for the best possible outcome for the equity investors of the project."
The Line DC hotel opened as a dining destination, featuring restaurant A Rake's Progress from James Beard Award-winning chef Spike Gjerde, but that restaurant permanently closed in 2020. It also featured two concepts from Maketto chef Erik Bruner-Yang: Brothers and Sisters and Spoken English, but he ended his involvement with the hotel in 2021.
These restaurants earned The Line DC a spot on Bon Appetit's list of 50 best new U.S. restaurants in 2018, and that same year Forbes called it D.C.'s "hippest" hotel.
The hotel now features No Goodbyes, a restaurant, bar and cafe that opened in 2021.
The hotel's developers received a $46M tax abatement from D.C. three years after it opened, following a legal dispute over whether it hired enough city residents to qualify for the abatement.
