Austin bucks trend with hotel-building spree

[AUSTIN, Texas] Skittish developers have delayed new hotels across much of the United States until the economy returns to health, and financing does too. But in Austin, developers aren't that wary.

A US$300 million JW Marriott hotel, the biggest JW Marriott in the country and the city's biggest hotel at 1.2 million square feet, is under construction near the Capitol. Developers broke ground on a Westin over the summer and a US$350 million Fairmont will be going up a few blocks away.

Eight hotels containing almost 4,000 rooms are scheduled to open across Austin within the next three years, making the Texas capital one of the most active markets in the US for new hotel construction.

White Lodging, a private hotel developer and manager responsible for about one-third of those rooms, is betting big on Austin. Although the Indiana firm has put up and managed mostly mid-market hotels near the airport or in the Austin suburbs for the last two decades and currently owns or manages 23 hotels, White Lodging is gambling that its two new downtown hotels, the JW Marriott and Westin, will be worth its more than US$400 millio…