Nareit has made the decision to cancel its upcoming REITwise 2020 meeting, scheduled for April 1-3 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Washington, DC.
Yesterday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser declared both a state of emergency and a public health emergency related to the COVID-19 virus, effective immediately. Also yesterday, the DC Department of Health recommended that non-essential mass gatherings, including conferences and conventions, be postponed or cancelled through March 31.
Given these developments related to the emergence of COVID-19, Nareit believes it is no longer safe, healthy, advisable or sensible to proceed with the meeting as scheduled.
Given the high difficulty of satisfactorily rescheduling REITwise later this year and the inherent limitations associated with Nareit successfully replicating the meeting electronically, Nareit will fully refund fees already paid by registrants and sponsors in the coming days.
If you have a hotel reservation at the Marriott Marquis which was not previously cancelled by you, it now will be automatically cancelled and any already paid fees will be refunded.
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or Pam Coleman, Nareit’s SVP for Meetings at pcoleman@nareit.com or members of her team, Afia Boone (aboone@nareit.com) or Katelyn Rowland (krowland@nareit.com).
We will certainly miss REITwise this year and we are very sorry that you will, too.
We look forward to seeing you at other Nareit meetings later in the year as well as at REITwise 2021 which will take place at the La Quinta Resort & Club on March 23-25 in La Quinta, CA.