Potomac Plaza

Not much more than a stone's throw from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington is a barren, 11 1/2-acre tract on the Potomac on which stand only two empty gas storage tanks. Last week a New York building syndicate announced that it plans to build there a $70 to $80 million Rockefeller Center-like development, with six office buildings, a shopping center, raised plaza and skating rink, 1,003-room hotel, 2,000-car underground garage and two apartment buildings.

The man behind Potomac Parkway Plaza is George Preston Marshall, laundryman and owner of the Washington Redskins football team. For years he has thought that the land should be developed, and last year he persuaded Builder John W. Harris, who put up Washington's Statler Hotel, to form a syndicate to take an option on the land. Though the financing of the development is not completed and only the hotel and one office building (to cost a combined $30 million), and the plaza and garage have reached the blueprint stage, construction is expected to begin within six months.

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