There are eight major hotels under construction in Boston and Cambridge as of the end of February. Together, the projects are due to add 2,398 rooms by mid-2022, and represent the biggest jump in hotel-room construction in both cities this century.
By the middle of 2022, too, a slew of other new hotels will likely be underway. The Boston Planning and Development Agency and Cambridge Community Development, that city’s planning agency, have approved 18 projects beyond the eight on this map.
These 18 include a 360-room component of the big redevelopment plans for Boston’s South Station, the 391-room Kenmore Hotel that’s due to resemble Manhattan’s Flatiron Building, and the 250-key Harvard Hotel and Conference Center in Brighton. But these are in the offing. The eight hotels herein are more imminent.
And they by themselves highlight the explosive growth in hotel development in Boston and Cambridge. The 2,405 room count for those hotels opening in 2020, 2021, and early 2022 is higher than the 2,082 rooms that opened in 2018 and 2019 in the two cities, according to Pinnacle Advisory Group, a consultancy.
The 6.6 percent annual increase in room supply expected in 2021, in fact, will be the largest such increase since 1999. See the chart below for more perspective.
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The developments, too, belie the health of the hospitality market from an industry perspective (which, in turn, helps explain the construction). The Boston-Cambridge market is one of the strongest in the U.S., with an occupancy rate of 82.5 percent and an average daily room rate of $261.31 at the end of 2019, according to Pinnacle.
And as far as revenue per room—the big measure for hotel operators—that was $215.61 at the end of last year, similar to what it was at the close of 2018.
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