Finding a room in Pittsburgh to get easier as hotels boom

Published: Friday, March 14, 2014, 9:06p.m. Updated 21 hours ago

Pittsburgh's choked hotel market is getting some room to breathe.

More than a dozen hotels are either under construction or will open this year in the city a $168 million investment by developers who are attracted by the market's near 70 percent occupancy rate. The modest boom will add more than 800 rooms to the 4,570 available in Downtown hotels.

The increase will help to alleviate some of the problems visitors may have finding rooms during key events, such as Pittsburgh Pirates games, but the city still lacks an important element for major conventions: a 1,000-room hotel at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

That's what professional meeting personnel tell us, said Craig Davis, president and CEO of VisitPittburgh. That is one reason we fail to attract larger conventions.

The 618-room Westin Convention Center Hotel is the sole major facility directly connected to the convention center. The problems posed by the shortage of rooms Downtown was underscored by the G-20 summit in 2011 when visitors had to travel to hotels in the suburbs to find a place to stay.

While existing hotels Downtown don't like the addition of new hotels, since they tend to take away some hotel guests, as president of the hotel association, I welcome all the new hotels opening in the region, said Tim Zugger, president of the Greater Pittsburgh Hotel Association and general manager of the Doubletree by Hilton hotel, Downtown.

The four hotels opening Downtown are doing it at a good time. Davis said 2015 is shaping up to be the best year ever for conventions, with room bookings 54,000 more than normal. Davis wouldn't say how many total rooms have been booked for 2015 but he said they include events by the Fraternal Order of Police with 19,000 rooms and the Barbershop Harmony Society with 15,000 rooms.

Developers invested $167.9 million in new or renovated hotels last year, up from $76.9 million in 2012, according to Breaking Ground magazine, published by Jeff Burd of Tall Timber Group in Ross. Some of the money is coming from out-of-state developers. They are attracted by the market's stability and relatively high occupancy rate, says a report by HVS Global Hospitality Services Inc.

I don't believe out-of-state developers were significant owners of Pittsburgh hotels prior to the last several years, said Keith McGraw of Sierra Associates in Sewickley, a partner with Mark LaPort in Concord Hospitality Enterprises Co. in Raleigh.

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Finding a room in Pittsburgh to get easier as hotels boom