John Marshall Hotel

Richmond, VA (circa 1929)

John Marshall Hotel was originally built as a 327,000 square foot hotel in downtown Richmond, Virginia in 1929. McPherson Design Group completed contract documents for the restoration and adaptive reuse of the building. The project involved converting the historic hotel into a mixed-use facility with 232 Class A Apartments, 22,384 square feet of meeting and conference spaces, and 30,540 square feet of retail and restaurant space. The design also included the addition of a six-story precast building, as well as roof-top pool and deck. Due to financial constraints, this project was placed on hold for a few years and the Owner/Developer joined with another entity to complete the project. Most of the design features in our contract documents were utilized by the new Owner/Developer, with the exception of the roof-top pool and deck. Our Design Team contributed significant design ideas to the final design that transformed a historic Richmond Hotel into a mixed-use project. The redevelopment and adaptive reuse of the historic and landmark Hotel John Marshall (1929) in Richmond, Virginia represents a $70 million impact to the community utilizing the HUD 221 (d) (4) program and Federal and State Historic Tax Credits. The John Marshall occupies one-half of a city block between 5th and 6th Streets on Grace Street. The Residences at the John Marshall took home two top awards recently, selected as the Best Project of 2012 by the Greater Richmond Association for Commercial Real Estate and as the recipient of the Impact Award by the Richmond Real Estate Group. McPherson Design Group also provided structural engineering and inspection services to the Owner of the John Marshall Hotel to evaluate the corner of the South court of the John Marshall Hotel where portions of the façade had collapsed. Specifically, our scope of work included: 1) Investigation of conditions and causes of the collapsed panels of the exterior façade; 2) Evaluation of the corner of the building where portions of the façade have collapsed; 3) Providing a report that shall include our opinions and the findings of our inspection as to the classification of the façade condition; 4) Providing design to correct identified deficiencies that are dangerous and unsafe in short term (one year period maximum); and 5) Providing sketches of suggested corrections. McPherson Design Group worked closely with the Owner and the City of Richmond to resolve this issue.