Stephen M. Golding, president and COO of the Dallas-based development company, tells GlobeSt.com that he hopes to have equity and debt in place by month's end for the opening act--three hotels in Dallas/Fort Worth and one in Jacksonville, FL. Ultimately, Jackson-Shaw's plan is to build a 20-hotel portfolio in five years, all nationally flagged assets for a long-term hold. Ideally, Golding says the annual development budget will be in the $100-million to $125-million range.

As the plan is solidified for initial debt and equity, the developer's team has zeroed in "six or seven" other cities in high-growth markets in the Sunbelt and West for next year's ground-up hospitality work. Unlike others in the arena, Jackson-Shaw is targeting business-driven locations, not leisure, Golding emphasizes.

"The key to the whole hotel idea really springs from Lewis Shaw and his history of hotels going back to the 1980s," Golding says. Through the years, the assets were sold, but Jackson-Shaw bounced back in 1999 with the development of 324-room Hampton Inn Tropicana in Las Vegas and five years later came out with a 548-room Renaissance Hotel in the same city. "That kind of just whetted our appetite," he explains.

Three of the four upcoming projects will rise in Jackson-Shaw-controlled territory. Breaking ground in July will be an eight-story Embassy Suites on a five-acre tract at the corner of Airport Road and International Airport Boulevard in Jacksonville International Tradeport, where Jackson-Shaw owns one million sf of fully leased industrial space and 85 developable acres that it bought in February 2006. The 175-room hotel, with nearly 10,000 sf of conference center space, will come on line in September 2008.

In August, the developer will break ground on side-by-side hotels fronting Texas 121 in its 100-acre Cascades at the Colony in North Texas. The Marriott Fairfield Inn & Suites at 5905 Stone Creek Dr. will be a four-story, 104-room design with a 7,540-sf event center and 3,325-sf ballroom. The next-door four-story neighbor at 6900 Cascade Court will be a 102-room Marriott Residence Inn. The two hotels, sharing 5.75 acres, will deliver in June 2008.

The last to break ground will be a 276-room Renaissance Hotel on a 2.6-acre tract in the Shops at Legacy Town Center in far north Dallas. The nine-story boutique hotel will have 16,000 sf of meeting space, 10,000 sf of retail and an 11,000-sf spa. Its delivery is penciled for the end of 2008.

Golding says the firm's four offices "are clearly places where we'd like to be" in terms of hotel development--Dallas, Las Vegas, Jacksonville and Lanham, MD. The hotel development team totals six, including Golding and Shaw. Golding stresses that the firm's not abandoning its bread-and-butter lines, but "this is just a niche for us that we need to continue to explore."