County is Tops in Hotel Development

SAN DIEGO-The county has more hotel projects and rooms under development than any other area of the state, a new study says. The new projects will eventually add 24% more rooms—-some 11,200—-to the county’s lodging stock, according to the report by Costa Mesa-based Atlas Hospitality Group. The county currently has more than 46,000 hotel rooms.

Though new construction virtually disappeared in the mid-1990s, hotel developers are now clearly making up for lost ground. The Atlas study says that this year alone, seven hotels have already opened and two more will debut by December. That’s the highest level of activity since 1991, the report says.