Downtown hotel pipeline swells

As many as 15 new hotel projects are in various stages of the development pipeline for Downtown Memphis, and if all of the projects make up through to completion the overall downtown room inventory would nearly double to about 6,000 rooms.

Most are considered smaller projects of 140 rooms or less, including:

• A 100-room La Quinta is under construction on Union Avenue at Danny Thomas Blvd. and will open next year
• The 58-room Hotel Napoleon, a conversion of an old office building on Madison and Third Ave., will open next month.
• Across the street from Autozone Park in the former Greyhound bus station, a 140-room Hilton Garden Inn project has been approved and franchised, and financing is being put in place. The project is expected to open in 18 months.
• Next to it on the corner of Fourth and Union, plans for a 115-room Holiday Inn Express have been approved by the city, franchising has been approved, but there is no financing yet.
• On Union Avenue between Fourth and Danny Thomas, Choice Hotels International bought a parcel with plans to build a Cambria Suites. Choice is looking for one its investors to partner with, but it has not happened yet.
• On the corner of Second Avenue and Vance, Hilton has approved a Homewood Suites with roughly 110 rooms.
• On the south end of Main Street, the old train station is being converted to a Hilton Curio. The apartments in the building will be renovated into approximately 120 hotel rooms.

“The Hilton Curio is a very complicated deal from a financing standpoint and also from a design standpoint,” said hotel consultant Chuck Pinkowski of Pinkowski & Co. “In my opinion, it’s going to be a great home run for Downtown Memphis, and it’s going to anchor the south end of Main Street.”

Many of the new downtown rooms will be upper midscale and upscale rooms.

“Of all of the hotel rooms in the pipeline nationally, 66 percent of them are in the upper midscale and upscale categories,” Pinkowski said.

Last week Pinkowski & Co. hosted the 14th annual Southern Lodging Summit, which featured more than 20 nationally recognized speakers and drew approximately 200 attendees.