Hartford Business Journal

16 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 2, 2025 New hotel projects currently under construction include (starting at top left, then clockwise): The 118-room Fairfield Metro Hotel, at 219 Ash Creek Blvd., in Fairfield; a rendering of the Hale Mill Norwich Tapestry Collection by Hilton, a 146-room hotel being built at 140 Yantik Road, in Norwich; the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton North Haven, at 700 Universal Drive North, is expected to debut this summer; and the Fairfield Inn & TownePlace Suites by Marriott, a 65-room hotel, is being constructed at 363 Roberts St., in East Hartford. PHOTOS | COSTAR Worries over tariff-related building costs may slow state's 'fairly quiet' hotel development; new projects eyed in Hartford hotels and 777,000 rooms go through planning phases. "We'll be watching those planning phases closely because those are where economic uncertainty is most likely to be impactful," he said. "Proj- ects already in construction are going to be completed regardless." CT's pipeline There are five hotels currently being built in the state that, when completed, will result in 437 new rooms, adding about 1% to the state's inven- tory of 38,000 rooms, according to Freitag. Almost 3,000 more rooms are in the initial and final planning stages, she said. Fairfield Metro Hotel, a 118-room hotel nearing completion, is being built on a 23.9-acre parcel, at 219 Ash Creek Blvd., by New Jersey-based developer Accurate. The hotel is part of a broader Crossings at Fairfield Metro develop- ment that will include 357 apartments, 70,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of retail space, By Michael Juliano mjuliano@hartfordbusiness.com G reat Wolf Lodge recently opened a new water park resort with hundreds of hotel rooms at Foxwoods Resort Casino, but that doesn't mean hotel develop- ment is booming in the state. In fact, new hotel construction across Connecticut has been relatively meager, and may stay that way as federal tariff policies fuel uncertainty over construction costs, said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at real estate firm CoStar. "Connecticut's hotel development activity has remained fairly quiet with less than a thousand rooms added in the last year, and less than 500 rooms in construction across five projects currently," she said. Since the start of 2020, the state added just 14 properties and 1,700 rooms, as the pandemic, and then higher construction and other costs fueled by inflation, have stalled new development, Freitag said. "Connecticut's highly seasonal performance has made hotel develop- ment a bit less attractive than other states, such as those in the south, which have seen a building boom," she said. "With tariffs looming, the cost of building materials is uncertain, which likely will put a damper on further development plans as well." Despite the slower activity, there's at least one Connecticut municipality in need of more hotels: Hartford, which lost hundreds of guestrooms during the pandemic and now needs more capacity to support conventions and other events that take place in the city. Some prominent developers said they are eyeing new projects in Hartford. Hotel construction nationwide declined year-over-year during the first three months of 2025 as a result of worries over the economy and rising construction costs. There were 144,760 rooms being built in March, down 7.5% from a year ago, according to CoStar. But the construction pipeline "remains robust" nationwide, according to Isaac Collazo, senior director of analytics at industry tracker STR Global, as 6,500 Michael Freimuth HOTEL OCCUPANCY RATES IN CT CONNECTICUT 1Q 2025 YEAR-OVER-YEAR SUBMARKET OCCUPANCY RATE CHANGE Groton/Norwich 47% 5% New Haven/Waterbury 51.4% 1.1% Stamford/Danbury 52.3% 1.8% Hartford CBD/South 56.5% 0.3% Hartford North/Windsor Locks 57.8% 5.3% Source: STR Global

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