Leading hotel markets in the U.S. construction pipeline

In the third quarter of 2018, analysts at Lodging Econometrics (LE) report that the top five markets with the largest total hotel construction pipelines are: New York City with 170 projects/29,630 rooms; Dallas with 157 projects/18,954 rooms; Houston with 150 projects/16,473 rooms; Los Angeles with 141 projects/24,129 rooms; and Nashville with 115 projects/15,179 rooms.

Projects already under construction and those scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months, combined, have a total of 3,782 projects/213,798 rooms and are at cyclical highs. Markets with the greatest number of projects already in the ground and those scheduled to start construction in the next 12 months are New York with 145 projects/24,675 rooms, Dallas with 112 projects/13,854 rooms, Houston with 103 projects/11,562 rooms, Los Angeles with 92 projects/14,249 rooms, and Nashville with 88 projects/12,322 rooms.

In the third quarter, Los Angeles has the highest number of new projects announced into the pipeline with 22 projects/6,457 rooms. Detroit follows Los Angeles with 18 projects/1,937 rooms, Dallas with 14 projects/1,529 rooms, New York City with 12 projects/1,857 rooms, and then Atlanta with 12 projects/1,354 rooms.

Reflecting the strong cyclical highs in the pipeline, LE’s forecast for new hotel openings will continue to rise in 2018-2020. In 2018, New York City tops the list with 29 new hotels expected to open/5,351 rooms, Dallas with 29 projects/3,187 rooms, Houston with 27 projects/3,259 rooms, Nashville with 22 projects/3,018 rooms, and Los Angeles with 12 projects/2,152 rooms. In the 2019 forecast, New York continues to lead with the highest number of new hotels expected to open with 59 projects/8,964 rooms followed by Houston with 31 projects/3,098 rooms and Dallas with 30 projects/3,379 rooms. In 2020, Dallas is forecast to take the lead for new hotel openings with 41 projects/4,809 rooms expected to open, followed by New York with 36 projects/5,978 rooms, and Los Angeles with 33 projects/4,292 rooms expected to open.

With the exception of New York City and Houston, the other markets mentioned in the opening show that supply growth has begun to surpass demand. The variances in 2018 year-to-date are small but are certain to widen in the next two years, given the strength of these pipeline in the markets.

All in all, 10 of the top 25 markets show supply growth minimally exceeding demand growth in 2018.

The Architectural Billings Index measures the general sentiment of U.S. architecture firms about the health of the construction market by measuring 1) design billings and 2) design contracts. Any score above 50 means that, among the architecture firms surveyed, more firms than not reported seeing increases in design work vs. the previous month.