Westin Irving Convention Center Las Colinas Hotel

Hotel construction groundbreaking ceremonies were bright spots in the April building report from Dodge Data & Analytics released May 19. Hotel construction starts rose 5 percent from the previous month, according to the report.

Dodge specifically called out the $106 million hotel portion of One Beverly Hills, a mixed-used complex being developed by a partnership of The Wanda Group and The Athens Group, which was also the development partner behind Montage Beverly Hills. The condo-hotel towers will include 134 hotel rooms and could open in 2020.

Also mentioned was the $113 million Westin Irving Convention Center Las Colinas Hotel in Texas with plans for 350 guest rooms to open in late 2018. It will be part of a growing entertainment district that includes a 17-acre Irving Music Factory with 200,000 sq. ft. of restaurant and retail space and a 7,000-seat Live Nation amphitheater.

That increase in hospitality construction starts was an isolated bump up in an overall drop of 13 percent in all categories, for a total of $647 billion, after climbing for three months from what the report called a “lackluster” December.

Almost 1,500 hotel projects, including 190,000 rooms, are currently under construction, according to hotel industry research company STR Global, a more than 24 percent increase from the previous year. That is a lot of cranes in the air in a lot of cities.

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