Lighthaven East - A Feasibility Study

As a bureaucrat, my role is to annoy my friends. Someone voices an idea, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” or “I wonder if we could…” I make a note. I do some estimates. If it pencils out, I’ll bring it back up, week after week. The discussions are fun, but also practical. We’ll test the waters, what would be a minimum viable scheme? What’s easy, what’s hard? Who could do the hard parts? Over time the idea gets more detailed, specific, feasible. I’ll pull out a calendar. Soon our scheme has co-conspirators, action items, even a budget. It’s just good staff work.I’ve been hearing whispers in the wind for a year now. “Imagine if we had something like this in DC.” “Where can I host an event that might get a dozen or a hundred people?” “It’s such a pain in the ass to book event space in the Capitol.” “I think this person has started to see what’s coming, where can they go to get caught up?”“The community seems to be growing but it’s all fragmented in group chats.” “How is no one planning an afterparty, that’s clearly the highest leverage intervention!?”“Why can’t every wall be whiteboards?”These are all variants on a theme: “Lighthaven East.” I did some digging. I’m happy to report that this could work. There’s strong demand. There are good options for supply. Funding, staffing, resources, property, and permits are all doable. The hard parts are diligence, agency, and will. This project needs a champion, but it’s a thing someone can simply choose to do. How Lighthaven WorksLegally speaking, Lighthaven is a confusing category error. It was once the ramshackle “Rose Garden Inn,” with several buildings, a hotel license, and a history of event use. After extensive renovations, it is now a 30,000 square foot campus used for conferences, retreats, office space, and medium-term lodging. The property is owned by Lighthaven LLC and financed by an interest-only mortgage held by a philanthropist. The LLC runs the property, hosts internal events, rents conference and office space to extern