Number of construction projects at Phoenix-area hotels on the rise
Jan 15, 2018, 4:14 PM
(Kevin Johnston/Forklift Safety Las Vegas)
(Kevin Johnston/Forklift Safety Las Vegas)
PHOENIX — The Phoenix-area has been a hotbed for construction projects recently, especially with hotels and in other hospitality industries.
According to the Phoenix Business Journal, the number of construction projects at Phoenix-area hotels was up 25 percent in December.
There were 7,006 rooms under construction in 50 hotels across the Phoenix area last month. During the same time period last year, that number was just at 5,308 rooms in 40 hotels.
That was a 32 percent increase in construction projects, the publication said.
However, those numbers included projects that ranged from just starting construction to projects that were in the final planning stages. The majority of the projects were in the final stages, which means officials plan on breaking ground within the next four months, the publication said.
This trend in the Valley reflects the opposite trend of what is happening nationwide: Across the country, hotel construction is down 3.7 percent.
But that might not be a bad thing, according to Jan Freitag with STR, a company that tracks supply and demand data for the hotel industry.
“We’ve seen three months in a row where construction numbers either decreased or remained flat, and we feel we can now call that a trend,” she said.
“A construction decline obviously bodes well for the current industry cycle. It appears that financing is becoming harder to obtain, and if demand growth holds, occupancy will not deteriorate as quickly or as much as anticipated.”
