TAMPA - The bustling construction site just south of Tampa International Airport certainly seems like an ideal location for a new hotel. It's within five minutes of the airport's terminal, two regional shopping malls and West Shore, Florida's largest office market not in a downtown area.

Not so, said John McKibbon, chief executive officer of Tampa-based McKibbon Hotel Management, which manages 50 hotel properties in eight states.

The 19-acre site actually is an ideal spot for three new hotels.

By next year, McKibbon, which is developing the hotels on the site, plans to add a Marriott, a Hilton Garden Inn and a Homewood Suites as part of Avion Park of Westshore, a retail, restaurant and office complex rising on West Spruce Street.

The three hotels are among more than 20 new lodgings projects either under way or planned for the Tampa area. Those include six hotels under construction, 12 more scheduled to break ground in the next 12 months, and four others in early planning stages, according to a recent report by The Plasencia Group, a national hotel investment and consulting firm based in Tampa.

Driving the development interest: rising room rates, strong profit potential, and increased willingness from banks to finance hotel and motel projects in cities with solid convention and business trades.

If all of the lodgings projects are built, Tampa will gain almost 3,000 rooms, The Plasencia Group estimates. That would be a 30 percent increase in the inventory of 10,770 rooms at 57 hotels.

"We're looking at a multimillion-dollar injection of new construction into the community," said Bob Morrison, executive director of the Hillsborough County Hotel & Motel Association.

No one's estimated how many jobs the new hotel projects could create, but the shot to the job market will be significant. The added inventory of rooms also should give Tampa an edge in recruiting larger conventions, Morrison said.

The lodgings industry has its sights on other cities, too. In New York, 11,000 rooms are under construction, and 4,100 rooms are under construction in Orlando.

"Development activity has picked up a good bit over the past year, both nationally and locally," said Daniel Peek, senior vice president for The Plasencia Group. "Many projects have moved from the early planning stages to the active development stages, and more projects are under construction than were 12 months ago."

Hotel brands range from the Ritz-Carlton hotel planned on Rocky Point to budget-oriented motels including the Days Inn near Busch Gardens.

Development interest is strongest in three areas: eight sites in West Shore, seven in east Tampa and seven in the Busch Gardens area.

Condo Money Now Going To Lodging

The building trend in Tampa is being driven in part by rising average room rates, which are drawing stronger interest in financing hotel projects despite concerns from the Fed about the economy.

Investment money that might have targeted condo and residential development before those segments went into decline is more readily available, and some construction materials have become cheaper. But land for hotel development remains expensive, Peek said.

For people who haven't spent much time on the road recently, higher room rates might catch them by surprise.

The average daily U.S. room rate rose 5.4 percent from June 2005 through June 2006, Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tenn., reports. Average daily hotel rates continue to climb in Tampa, up about 6 percent to $109.81 for the six months of 2007, Smith Travel Research says.

That's good news for local hotel investors and operators, helping counter a 2.7 percent decline in local occupancy, with 68.7 percent of Tampa hotel rooms occupied January through June.

Room rate increases and flat occupancy mirror trends nationwide. Tampa, however, shows strong demand Sundays through Thursdays, continued strength in pricing among the leading hotels, and plenty of development sites from which to choose, Peek said.

In recent years, some higher-end hotel projects were combined with condominiums to leverage economic strengths of both.

When the condo market began to soften in the Tampa Bay region in early 2006, plans for condo-hotels were deferred, like some in Pinellas County, or have fallen through, like the luxury Fairmont hotel-condo on waterfront land near the Port of Tampa.

The decline in condo and residential construction also has created investment and construction opportunities in places such as Tampa, where banks and investors think the local economy has potential for growth.

"There's been a pent-up demand for new hotel product in West Shore," McKibbon said. "Room demand is fairly stable and not growing as fast as a year ago, but rates are growing, which is good."

More Hotels Are In The Hopper

John Moors, Tampa's administrator for the Tampa Convention Center, said the city always needs more hotel rooms, in particular within walking distance of the downtown facility.

A 360-room Embassy Suites opened last year adjacent to the Convention Center, which relies on the nearby Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina and the Westin Tampa Harbour Island, in addition to a handful of hotels somewhat farther away.

"As you move a couple blocks away, you might have to arrange transportation," Moors said of attracting convention center groups. "The big trend is big hotels with meeting space under one roof." At least two hotels opened recently in Orlando with more space than the Tampa Convention Center, Moors said.

In addition to the Embassy Suites downtown, a 100-room Staybridge Suites and a 126-room Homewood Suites recently opened in east Tampa.

Beyond the construction boost, more than $230 million has been spent buying and selling local hotels in the past two years, with an additional $100 million in pending deals, Peek said. Two Wyndhams and a Hilton, Radisson and Marriott are among recent sales.

Plans also have been made to convert the brands of three West Shore hotels. The AmeriSuites Airport will become a Hyatt Place, the Econo Lodge Midtown will become a Quality Inn, and the Wyndham will reopen after a major renovation as an Inter-Continental hotel.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at tjackovics@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7817.