The project includes a luxury European hotel flag, a London-based jazz club, neighborhood retail, restaurants and a 166-unit apartment building at a city-owned site at Fifth and Eye streets. The project, Fenty says in a prepared statement, "is the perfect gateway between our bustling Chinatown and Gallery Place entertainment district and the emerging Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood."

Called Arts at 5th I, the project will be anchored by a ME by Melia, a high-end Spanish hotel that will deliver 206 keys. It will also include the Boisdale Jazz Club, the Zenith Art gallery a bike shop, a hardware store, book store and café. Fifty units of the 166-unit apartment building will be affordable, slotted for renters earning less than 60% of the area median income. The developer has also proposed a 238-space underground parking garage.

The site was transferred to the District government in October 2007 when the National Capital Revitalization Corp. was disbanded. Solicitation for proposals to develop this stretch of land was issued earlier this year.