Choice Hotels moves to walkable, mixed-use Rockville

This week, Choice Hotels headquarters will be moving from its longtime home in Silver Spring to a new building in the heart of Rockville Town Square. Why the move? CEO Stephen P. Joyce explains in a recent Washington Post article that a more accessible location with a variety of amenities will play an important part in boosting the company’s image.

“It didn’t help, he said, that the bland, suburban headquarters space did little to combat a snarky critique sometimes made of the company’s hotels — that they are suitable only for bargain hunters. Or that visiting business partners often had to stay miles away at a Comfort Inn off Interstate 270.”  We reported a few months ago that Zappos founder Tony Hsieh was instrumental in a similar move for his headquarters out west.

A mixed-use development project featuring a Cambria Suites hotel (one of Choice Hotel’s flagship brands) as well as multifamily housing, parking and street level retail is currently underway in what is/used to be a surface parking lot in front of Regal Cinemas.