The total U.S. hotel construction pipeline, which includes projects under construction, scheduled to start in the next 12 months and those in early planning, at the end of the third quarter was down about 7 percent year over year for projects and down about 6 percent for rooms, according to Lodging Econometrics. The U.S. pipeline as of Sept. 30 stood at 5,282 projects and 655,026 rooms, according to the company.
The third-quarter pipeline also trailed second-quarter figures, which the company expected as a cyclical higher number of projects under construction in the first quarter were delayed and opened in Q2. Further, new project announcements continue to be muted, and 191 projects with 21,859 rooms during the third quarter either exited the pipeline or moved to a canceled or hold status.
In Q3, 1,610 projects were under construction, a 7 percent year-over-year decline. Those projects totaled 216,136 rooms, down 8 percent year over year, according to the third-quarter report. Projects in the early planning stage were at 1,559 with 192,362 rooms, representing both a year-over-year and a quarter-over-quarter increase, according to Lodging Econometrics.
Dallas had the largest total hotel construction pipeline at 154 projects with 18,592 rooms, followed by Los Angeles (134 projects with 25,188 rooms), New York City (144 projects with 25,147 rooms), Atlanta (134 projects with 18,670 rooms) and Houston (109 projects with 11,384 rooms). New York had the most projects under construction (105 projects with 18,453 rooms).
During the quarter, 280 hotels with 31,271 rooms opened in the United States. Year to date, 599 hotels with 68,712 rooms have opened in the U.S., with another 326 projects with 35,324 rooms anticipated to open by the end of 2020.