Concord Hospitality Touts Development Pipeline

RALEIGH, NC—Locally-based hotelier Concord Hospitality reports it currently has the most ambitious development pipeline in its 30-year history.

Concord has 12 hotels under construction from south Florida to New York City. In addition, the firm is providing third-party management services for another five hotels that are under construction. All 17 hotels in the pipeline will be managed by Concord upon their respective openings. The firm also has 11 additional hotels in active development that involve sites that are under contract or franchise agreements secured.

With the opening of the hotels in the current pipeline, the company will surpass 100 hotels under management and will open 12 hotels in as many months.

“Having weathered a number of hotel cycles, we were confident coming out of 2009 that the near future would be positive, and we took a well calculated risk that this cycle would be a bit unique," says Mark Laport, Concord Hospitality president and CEO. "We were one of the few companies who developed continuously through the downturn, setting the stage for the most aggressive growth phase in our company's 30-year history."

The company recently broke ground on its $91-million Hyatt House in Jersey City, NJ, which will be the brand's first upside-down hotel with a top-floor lobby that takes in the New York City skyline with floor to ceiling windows. Concord also is developing two New York City hotels, an AC Hotel in Hudson Yards and a Cambria Hotel and Suites close to Times Square. The company will also be managing two additional hotels in New York City—a Cambria Suites on 28th St. and a Courtyard by Marriott on Greenwich Street adjacent to the World Trade Center memorial site.

"Even if New York's fundamentals soften with increased capacity, our three new hotels underwrite very well," Laport adds. "Contrary to popular opinion, in some markets, there's also feasibility for ground up full-service hotels as both group and meeting spend and transient travel demand continue to increase in most markets throughout the country. Many people anticipated that technology would be the death knell of business travel, but businesses have rediscovered that there is no substitute for in-person relationship building."

Laport estimates that Concord's current construction pipeline will create more than 800 permanent hotel jobs and 3,400 construction jobs.