BizBash | 2017 Preview: 10 Most Anticipated Washington Venues for Meetings and Events

WASHINGTON, D.C. Looking for a new venue to host your next event? Here are the most anticipated Washington restaurants, corporate event venues, hotels, conference centers, and party rooms to open this year. These new and renovated D.C. venues will accommodate groups large or small for private and corporate events, conferences, meetings, weddings, business dinners, teambuilding activities, cocktail parties, and more.

1. The Museum of the Bible is slated to open in 2017 near the Federal Center Southwest metro station. The $500 million project will span eight floors and 430,000 square feet, with dramatic city views from its rooftop. The museum will use state-of-the-art technology to tell the ancient history of the Bible, including a 140-foot LED ceiling screen running the expanse of the museum’s grand lobby. Additional event space includes a ballroom with room for 500 for seated dinners and lecture-style seating for 1,000, as well as a high-tech 472-seat performing arts hall. The restaurateurs behind Equinox are also planning to open two eateries in the museum: an Israeli street food café called Manna and a 70-seat coffee shop called Milk & Honey.

2. News broke in 2015 that famed sushi chain Nobu would expand to Washington, but the opening ended up being pushed to 2017. According to news reports, the D.C. outpost will open in the West End neighborhood and span 11,000 square feet with private dining rooms and multiple patios.

3. The grand opening for the first phase of the Wharf, a $2 billion, mile-long development along the Potomac River on Maine Avenue, is slated for October. The project includes 20 restaurants, including new openings from local star chefs like Fabio Trabocchi, Cathal Armstrong, and Mike Isabella, along with entertainment, residential, retail, and office space. The Wharf will also be host to a 413-room combined Hyatt House and Canopy by Hilton, slated to open in late 2017. The area will be served by regularly scheduled Entertainment Cruises water taxis that will travel between D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

4. Adams Morgan’s new boutique hotel the Line opens in early 2017 in the former home of a 110-year-old neoclassical church. The 220-room hotel will include 10,000 square feet of event space including a 3,800-square-foot ballroom, four meeting rooms, a 2,100-square-foot pool deck, and a 5,590-square-foot rooftop terrace. The hotel will also be home to multiple restaurants from local star chefs Spike Gjerde and Erik Bruner-Yang.

5. New York’s acclaimed Sushi Nakazawa is getting a sister restaurant in the Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C. Chef Daisuke Nakazawa’s restaurant—shortened to Nakazawa—will replace abandoned projects from chef José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian, who dropped out of the hotel development after inflammatory remarks from President-Elect Donald Trump during the campaign. Nakazawa is slated to open in the summer of 2017, joining now-open restaurant BLT Prime. It will seat about 40 guests and have a private dining room.

6. Marriott’s millennial-friendly Moxy DC Hotel is slated to open downtown in 2017 on K Street. The 200-room property converts a historic building into a modern hotel with polished concrete floors, exposed concrete columns, a rooftop lounge, and a street-level patio. Travelers will also appreciate high-tech amenities like keyless entry, motion-sensor lighting under beds, and a constantly updated Instagram Wall showcasing images from Moxy travelers worldwide.

7. A permanent digital art space from Sandro Kereselidze and Tatiana Pastukhova, local art curators and the founders of art event company Art Soiree, is slated to open in early 2017. The 15,000-square-foot ArTecHouse will showcase interactive and immersive exhibits, and will be located in Southwest Washington near the upcoming Wharf development.

8. Downtown’s Doubletree Hotel will become the Darcy, part of Hilton’s Curio Collection. Located near the White House, the hotel’s renovation is slated to include restaurants from popular area chefs David Guas and Robert Wiedmaier. The 226-room hotel is slated to open in mid-2017, and will include approximately 5,500 square feet of meeting space.

9. U Street cocktail bar Five to One is slated to open in early 2017 in the former Dickson Wine Bar space. The bar is themed around Washington’s iconic music venue the 9:30 Club, which is just around the corner. Owner Trevor Frye will even devise cocktail menus based around whichever act is playing at 9:30 that evening.

10. Upscale mixed-use development the Collection in Chevy Chase, Maryland, is planning to debut new public spaces, plazas, storefronts, and restaurants in the third quarter of 2017. New York-based Little Beet Table is among the restaurants slated for the development, serving healthful food made with local ingredients in a 5,000-square-foot space with outdoor seating.