Monday, July 27, 2026
Newly opened in Georgetown: a citizenM hotel. Are you wondering what the M stands for?
Not for our vibrant main drag, M Street. Facing the Whitehurst Freeway and the Potomac, the hotel is on K. And other citizenM hotels are on School Street, south of L’Enfant Plaza, and on First Street in NoMa, not to mention in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, London, Paris and a dozen more cities.
And not for Marriott. In 2005, when Marriott International acquired the chain of affordable boutique hotels — then based in Voorschoten in the Netherlands — the brand already had its unusual name.
In fact, the M is for mobile (mobiele, in Dutch). From the website: “Our guests are explorers, adventurers and dreamers who travel with wide eyes and big hearts. They don’t just stay at citizenM, they are citizenM, which is why we named ourselves after them.”
Explorers, adventurers, dreamers, digital nomads, mobile citizens — this brand speaks to you … constantly.
A few examples: “citizenM says: your fluffy pillows are ready,” “citizenM says: steal this pen and write to a loved one back home,” “citizenM says: shhh … the hairdryer is hiding” (in a bright red bag).
Co-founded by fashion entrepreneur Rattan Chadha and hotel executive Michael Levie in 2008, the year the first citizenM opened at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, the brand has a distinctly Northern European feel. The Hansgrohe rainfall shower is German, the Geberit toilet Swiss. The bath towels are French, part of the Zonda terry collection of Garnier Thiebaut.
Not everything is from across the Atlantic: the XL mattresses with their white toppers are custom Sealys.
The wall-to-wall beds loom large in citizenM’s minimalist guest rooms, reflecting the lifestyle of the “citizens,” groups of whom appear in black-and-white photo montages. Global go-getters, they are known to spend most of their waking hours outside their rooms — while putting a high value on sleep.
Furnishings are mod and prefab. A safe is built into the bed platform and a mini fridge into the desk. Temperature, lighting, media and the mechanized window shades are iPad-controlled. Reading material: little volumes of “The School of Life.”
The 24/7 canteenM restaurant. Photo by Richard Selden.
Other features that target the tribe: a fitness center; a 24/7 restaurant, canteenM (available for “Jetlagged cravings, early morning breakfast blues and midnight snack attacks”); high-speed Wi-Fi; and, crammed with colorful décor, a long lobby that serves as living room, co-working space, library and den. Staff members are always around, but contactless service, at check-in and check-out, for instance, has been introduced wherever it adds efficiency.
There is a playful, artsy quality throughout (little Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” sculptures keep popping up), courtesy of architecture and design firm Concrete Amsterdam, “a team of 50 curious people from a range of creative fields.”
A view of the lobby in the new citizenM hotel in Georgetown. Photo by Richard Selden.
With 230 rooms, the seven-story Georgetown property, originally a brick warehouse, is flush to the sidewalk at 3401 K St. NW, formerly the address of the Berliner restaurant and Gypsy Sally’s and, earlier, Gérard Pangaud’s Malmaison.
The location offers many advantages, especially to walkers. Crossing under the freeway, one easily reaches the waterfront trails. Next to the hotel’s east side, which displays a mural of rowers by J.D. Deardourff, is a staircase leading to the little plank bridge over the (dry) C&O Canal. From the canal footpath, one can proceed up to the Francis Scott Key Memorial park, the restaurants, ice cream shops and retail — notably Cady’s Alley — along M Street and the edge of the Georgetown University campus.
While students’ family members and other GU visitors will find it especially handy, the hotel adds a convenient and reasonably priced option for Georgetown residents to suggest to D.C.-bound friends and relatives.
Note: Marriott Bonvoy members can get up to 20 percent off at the Georgetown citizenM by booking two nights or more through Sept. 30. Also, mycitizenM+ members get a 15-percent discount for direct bookings, on food and drink and on meeting room rentals.