🔒Worries over tariff-related building costs may slow state’s ‘fairly quiet’ hotel development; new projects eyed in Hartford

Great Wolf Lodge recently opened a new water park resort with hundreds of hotel rooms at Foxwoods Resort Casino, but that doesn’t mean hotel development 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 development 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 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. “Projects 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 inventory 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 development that will include 357 apartments, 70,000 square feet of office space and 40,000 square feet of retail space, according to Accurate’s website.

Fairfield Inn & TownePlace Suites by Marriott, a 65-room hotel set for completion this summer, is being constructed at 363 Roberts St., in East Hartford, according to the town’s website and CoStar. The project is a renovation of a former East Hartford Ramada Inn.

Two other hotels expected to debut this summer are a 103-room Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton North Haven, at 700 Universal Drive North, and a five-room Broadway Avenue Hotel, at 32 Broadway Ave., in Mystic, according to CoStar.

Greenwich Hospitality Group recently debuted its new 31-room Delamar Mystic hotel on the campus of the Seaport Museum and the banks of the Mystic River.

Hale Mill Norwich Tapestry Collection by Hilton, a 146-room hotel, is being built at 140 Yantik Road, in Norwich, according to CoStar.

Capital City’s needs

Meantime, Hartford has a shortage of hotels, having lost around 700 rooms during the pandemic.

Some former hotel properties have since been converted into apartments. Conversions have included turning the top half of the 22-story former 393-room Hartford Hilton into the “Revel” apartments, and renovating the bottom half of the property into a 170-room DoubleTree by Hilton Hartford hotel.

In addition, the 116-room Homewood Suites by Hilton, at 338 Asylum St., was converted into the Bond Residences.

“These things have kind of happened in a perfect storm,” said Connecticut Lodging Association Executive Director Ginny Kozlowski of Hartford’s loss of hotel rooms. “As the market starts to stabilize, I think you will see more (hotel) investors come back into town.”

Randy Salvatore, CEO of Stamford-based developer RMS Cos., said he will propose a 120-room hotel on the site of his 20-acre North Crossing mixed-use development in Hartford, near Dunkin’ Park, if plans move forward to convert an old, nearby data center into an AI hub.

The city of Hartford has requested state support to launch the Connecticut Center for Applied AI, an effort that could include an investment of up to $100 million over several years.

“We believe that the possible development of the AI Center, coupled with a new hotel on that site, would bring good activity and excitement to the area around Dunkin’ Park, our North Crossing development, and further connect the north end of Hartford to the center of the city,” he said.

RMS owns five boutique hotels across the state, including The Goodwin, a 124-room property, at 1 Haynes St., in downtown Hartford. The company recently announced plans to add 54 rooms to its 94-room Lloyd Hotel in Stamford.

Plans for another office-to-hotel conversion in Hartford have been revived at 15 Lewis St., a shuttered office building once home to LAZ Parking, before the company relocated to the Gold Building years ago.

Prominent developer Lexington Partners has discussed turning the 53,531-square-foot building into a boutique hotel with up to 90 rooms.

There is also interest in turning the vacant lot at 3 Constitution Plaza, formerly home to WFSB Channel 3’s broadcast center, into a hotel, officials said.

Hartford needs more hotel rooms to accommodate visitors to the Convention Center, XL Center, Dunkin’ Park and other venues, but developers need to focus on projects that meet the needs of today’s travelers, said Michael Freimuth, executive director of the Capital Region Development Authority.

“You can look at these spreadsheets all day long. The reality is, the market is measured by the consumer preferences, not by the number of rooms or rates,” he said. “It’s the comfort and amenities and features of the new buildings, and people pay up for them. The demand for new buildings at a higher price point is outpacing the older buildings at the lower price points.”