Orange County Business Journal
01/26/17

Hotel Development Stays Strong

http://www.ocbj.com/news/2017/jan/26/hotel-development-stays-strong

Orange County has 11 hotels with 1,655 rooms under construction about on par overall with the seven hotels and 1,808 the market added last year.

The numbers show strong local hotel development, said Alan Reay, president of consultant and broker Atlas Hospitality Group in Irvine, which produces the annual California Hotel Development Survey.

“Across the board we’re seeing development way, way up,” he said. “The price of existing hotels here is way above replacement costs,” which makes development more attractive.

The slight dip in new rooms—1,655 this year compared with 1,808 last year—is due largely to the 2016 opening of Great Wolf Lodge in Garden Grove last year, with its 603 rooms. It’s the largest hotel by room count that opened in California in 2016.

The numbers look to continue strongly for several years, the Atlas survey shows, with 40 hotels with 8,808 rooms in some stage of planning in OC.