Watergate complex to Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. The name "Watergate" and the suffix "-gate" have since become synonymous with political scandals in the United States and elsewhere. The Watergate superblock is bounded on the north by Virginia Avenue, on the east by New Hampshire Avenue, on the south by F Street, and on the west by the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway. It is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood overlooking the Potomac River, next to the Kennedy Center and the embassy of Saudi Arabia. The nearest Metro station, 0.4 miles (650 m) distant, is Foggy Bottom-GWU. For more than a
Watergate complex other parts of the complex (some of whom owned the 25 percent of the hotel not sold to Blackstone) argued that a hotel would better enhance the livability of the area and challenged the conversion in court. The hotel closed on August 1, 2007, for a $170 million 18-month renovation, during which the hotel rooms were intended to be roughly doubled in size to . But the renovation never occurred, and the building sat empty—consuming $100,000 to $150,000 a month in security, heating, electricity, water, and other costs. Lehman Brothers, Monument Realty's financing partner, went bankrupt in 2008 and Monument