Guests staying in the Alexandria-Pineville area are about to get a bunch more lodging options.
Several planned new projects in the two cities will add about 450 hotel rooms, boosting inventory by at least 18 percent.
In downtown Alexandria, the Hotel Bentley and Holiday Inn Downtown Convention Center (formerly the Alexander Fulton Hotel) are undergoing renovations. Two hotels are under construction near the Alexandria Mall, and a third is about to break ground. Pineville recently approved a Holiday Inn Express to be built on U.S. Highway 165.
It’s been years since the area has seen this kind of activity. Though new hotels have been constructed in recent years — notably Courtyard by Marriott in 2010 and Candlewood Suites in 2012 — the last time a comparable number of projects were underway at the same time was 2007, when four new hotels were built.
“That’s extremely significant,” said longtime local developer Rod Noles. “Any time you’re talking about adding more than 15 percent to your inventory, it’s significant.”