Big Plans For Hotels Here

We feel it’s important to keep up with our community here at King’s Land Surveying and earlier in the week a bit of interesting news came across our doorstep in the form of newsprint. We picked up a little informative article by Matt Stephens over at Community Impact Newspaper — The Woodlands Edition (You can check it out for yourself here). There are some really great points scattered throughout the article between bits of topical, but less exciting economics jabber like hotel occupancy tax revenue and fiscal year-to-date, so we took it upon ourselves to filter out the technical terms and give all the exciting parts an article of their own right here.

If you’re a part of the Woodlands or Shenandoah communities, you may have noticed an increase in hotel-related developments around the area.

While we can’t educate you in Hotel Management 101, we can sum up what we’ve learned from Fred Domenick, general manger of The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in a convenient list:

1. Demand is strong in the hotel market
2. The Houston hotel market — including the Woodlands — is one of the strongest in the country
3. The current hotel supply does not meet the demand
4. The Woodlands is very under-supplied

Now that we’ve identified the problem, you should be wondering what’s being done to fix it.

The Woodlands

• According to Matt Stephens, there is a planned $60 million renovation (that’s pretty big money) to the Woodlands Resort and Convention Center, which includes a 184 room addition to the hotel. Separately, the construction of the Hyatt Place Hotel at Research Forest Drive and Grogan’s Mill Road is expected to add 150 rooms to the current 1,500 rooms of the 11 hotels within Woodlands limits. The new hotel rooms are expected to be rolled in by springtime in 2014. Even further in the future, there are plans for hotels at Hughes Landing and Waterway Square that could bring about 500 rooms to the area by 2015.

Shenandoah

• Shenandoah, a close cousin of the Woodlands, is home to seven hotels that rack up a grand total of 600 rooms. According to City Administrator, Greg Smith, Shenandoah is in the process of negotiating the development of five different hotels near the intersection of David Memorial Drive and Tamina Drive that could bring quadruple digit room increases of 1,000-1,200 to the city over the upcoming three or four years.

Oak Ridge North

• Surprise! Even little Oak Ridge North is trying for a piece of the pie. The city currently does not have any hotels, but has recently been discussing land for hotels on the southwest corner of Robinson Road and the I-45 feeder road. This tract is the only one within the city limits that could be useful for a hotel and Oak Ridge North is taking full advantage. City Manager, Vicky Rudy is looking to “transform a corner that is unproductive at this point.” She looks to see an upper-end hotel that would attract business, overnight guests, and restaurants, occupying the land within the next two or three years.