The City of Angels continues to be the City of Hotels. Los Angeles is expected to add 14 hotels with nearly 3,100 rooms in the second half of 2020, and a total of 50 hotels with 10,436 rooms in the next four years, according to the TopHotelProjects construction database. Of those 50 hotels, 33 will be in the four-star category, and 17 will be in the five-star designation.
For the fourth consecutive quarter, Los Angeles was the top hotel construction market, with 163 projects and 27,415 rooms in its pipeline in the second quarter of 2020, according to Portsmouth, N.H.-based Lodging Econometrics.
Trailing L.A. was Dallas, with 158 projects and 19,314 rooms in its pipeline; New York City, with 151 projects and 26,302 rooms; Atlanta, with 135 projects and 18,634 rooms; and Houston, with 122 projects and 12,486 rooms.
These five markets accounted for 15% of the rooms in the U.S. hotel pipeline. The country’s total hotel construction pipeline stood at 5,582 projects and 687,801 rooms in the second quarter, down only 1% from the same period a year ago. “Contrary to what is being experienced in hotel operations, the pipeline remains robust as interest rates are at all-time lows,” states Lodging Econometrics.
New York had the greatest number of projects under construction in the second quarter: 106 with 18,354 rooms. L.A. was next, with 48 projects and 8,077 rooms being built., followed by Atlanta, Dallas, and Nashville (37 projects and 6,597 rooms). These five markets accounted for nearly one-fifth of the rooms under construction in the U.S.
All told, 1,771 projects with 235,467 rooms were under construction nationwide, up 3% and 1%, respectively, from the second quarter in 2019.
During the first half of this year, the U.S. opened 313 hew hotels with 36,992 rooms, and added 481 projects with 56,823 rooms to its pipeline. However, new project announcements in the second quarter fell by 53% compared to the same period last year.
OPPORTUNE FINANCING MAKES HOTEL RENOS AND CONVERSIONS MORE VIABLE
Lodging Econometrics also recorded 1,276 active renovation and conversion projects with an aggregate 217,865 rooms across the country. Chicago lead the way with 28 projects and 4,717 rooms, followed by Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., and Atlanta.
Nationwide, there were 1,465 active renovation projects with 314,043 rooms, and 1,196 active conversion projects with 136,110 rooms in the first half of this year.
Despite the impact COVID-19 has had on operating performance, development in the lodging industry continues. In the first half of 2020, Dallas recorded the highest count of new projects announced into the pipeline with 18 projects and 2,018 rooms. Washington D.C. followed with 14 projects and 1,978 rooms, then Phoenix with 13 projects and 1,397 rooms, Miami with 10 projects and 2,472 rooms, and the Florida Panhandle with nine projects and 1,178 rooms.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
CityCenter Takes Experience Design To New Heights
It's early June, in Las Vegas, which means it's very hot, and I am coming to the end of a hardhat tour of the $9.2 billion CityCenter development, a tour that began in the air-conditioned comfort of the project's immense sales center just off the famed Las Vegas Strip and ended on a rooftop overlooking the largest privately funded development in the U.
| Aug 11, 2010
The softer side of Sears
Built in 1928 as a shining Art Deco beacon for the upper Midwest, the Sears building in Minneapolis—with its 16-story central tower, department store, catalog center, and warehouse—served customers throughout the Twin Cities area for more than 65 years. But as nearby neighborhoods deteriorated and the catalog operation was shut down, by 1994 the once-grand structure was reduced to ...
| Aug 11, 2010
Great Solutions: Healthcare
11. Operating Room-Integrated MRI will Help Neurosurgeons Get it Right the First Time A major limitation of traditional brain cancer surgery is the lack of scanning capability in the operating room. Neurosurgeons do their best to visually identify and remove the cancerous tissue, but only an MRI scan will confirm if the operation was a complete success or not.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gold Award: Westin Book Cadillac Hotel & Condominiums Detroit, Mich.
“From eyesore to icon.” That's how Reconstruction Awards judge K. Nam Shiu so concisely described the restoration effort that turned the decimated Book Cadillac Hotel into a modern hotel and condo development. The tallest hotel in the world when it opened in 1924, the 32-story Renaissance Revival structure was revered as a jewel in the then-bustling Motor City.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Palmer House Hilton Hotel & Shops Chicago, Ill.
Chicago's Palmer House Hilton holds the record for the longest continuously operated hotel in North America. It was originally built in 1871 by Potter Palmer, one of America's first millionaire developers. When it was rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire it became the first hotel in the U.S. to put a telephone in every room.
| Aug 11, 2010
Gulf Coast Hotel's Stormy Road to Recovery
After his initial tour of the dilapidated 1850s-era Battle House Hotel, Ron Blount, construction manager with Retirement Systems of Alabama, said to his boss: “You need a priest more than you need a contractor.” Those words were more prescient to RSA's restoration of the historic Mobile landmark than he could have known at the time.
| Aug 11, 2010
Lifestyle Hotel Trends Around the World
When the Rocco Forte Collection opens the Verdura Golf & Spa Resort in Sicily in early 2009, the 200-room luxury property will be one of the world's newest lifestyle hotels. Lifestyle hotels cater to guests seeking a heightened travel experience, which they deliver by offering distinctive—some would say avant-garde, or even outrageous—architecture, room design, amenities, and en...
