Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square

Lancaster, PA

This renovated hotel and convention center incorporates the historic Watt & Shand Building, a circa 1898 landmark in the heart of Lancaster, and the 205-year old William Montgomery House, which now sits inside the hotel’s lobby. Cooper Carry designed multiple buildings as part of this $177.6 million project.

The Lancaster County Convention Center - which has 90,000 square feet of meeting space - and the Lancaster Marriott grace the city’s historic Penn Square. The Beaux-Arts facade of the Watt & Shand Building was preserved and incorporated into the convention and hotel complex.

This project has garnered multiple awards as an example of creative adaptive reuse of the landmark site while also enhancing the historic and walkable character of the city. Several years later, we were asked to address a shortage of hotel rooms needed to accommodate the convention center, which is part of the city’s robust tourism sector. The 12-story addition provided an additional 110 rooms and a rooftop bar.