Letter to the Editor: The New Old Carr Hotel

By Kathryn Papp

Just released, and minimally revised, after a blisteringly bad first appraisal by the Board of Architectural Review, the “new” vision for the Carr properties hotel remains menacing. While reducing the total room size by one and adding a thin dark alleyway on the north side – nothing else has changed. And that’s the problem. The remaining structure is a vulgar, massive eyesore of mundane, uninspired brick and stone pile, featuring aquarium style windows on Union Street … the latter, a recent city fad expected to induce “vibrancy” by offering diners’ mealtimes for your entertainment.

Where did this visionary hotel rendering come from? Obviously, It is a happy companion to the monstrous buildings built in the 60’s and 70’s that still serve to gut the collection of splendid and well-maintained architecture throughout the Historic District. The drawing marries up with the nasty building on the south side of Founders Park with the other out-of-scale office buildings abutting the river. Rising up to over 60 feet, when the top metal roofing and chimney is viewed from Lee Street. The back patio is faced by an expanse of small pane windows (which obstruct insiders’ view of the river) and littered with the predictable pots of crepe myrtle and whatever… our planning department considers this public access. Access to this patio-with-river-view will probably require you buy a pricey drink. If you come with your family, the cost of a table might be an entire day’s wage, or more.

This massive brick structure will make an outsize contribution to the city’s already bad position with Federal stormwater runoff requirements, which was described by the city in 2011 as impossible to comply with, even using every engineering and “best practice” on the market. As presented, this hotel is the ultimate historic preservation and ecological nightmare: do as much harm as possible by building as densely as possible in as small a space as possible using the worst materials you can.

Stylistically, this hotel can be anywhere you might imagine – on the Orange Line corridor, where it would fit right in; in National Harbor, where it would also be right at home; or in North Dakota where it would a charming addition to the wide-open prairie. But sitting on the edge of a Historically consistent, well preserved, and meticulously maintained collection of stylish Federal period homes and gardens – no. Where is the cobblestone alleyway? The green roof? The parking for all guests and workers? A loading dock that isn’t hideously ugly and situated on a historically important street? Windows that aren’t obviously black, metal struts in a frame?

Other cities and firms respond to this type of challenge – a small space, in a place of great style and historic importance, bounded by a fragile river – by rising to the occasion and going beyond the ordinary. Here the occasion is not one of celebration at the offering, but one of deep despair and wonder that such a complete void of imagination is actually presented for serious consideration.

In reading through the BAR guidelines to try to understand how the parameters might spur greater artistry and interpretation to create an authentically vibrant building from this offering, it was impossible to even begin. The first step asked you to identify the period the building represented: not Federal, not Victorian, not Art Deco – perhaps we can call it “The Alexandrian Big Bore Era,” which extended from 1965 to Present.