From the Chattanooga Times Free Press: In the midst of the pandemic as hotel operators struggled to cope with a drop in both business and leisure
From the Chattanooga Times Free Press: In the midst of the pandemic as hotel operators struggled to cope with a drop in both business and leisure bookings, the Dynamic Group started work on three new hotels in Chattanooga.
In just seven months starting last fall, the Chattanooga-based hotel group opened new inns in East Ridge, East Brainerd and Hixson — the first new hotels to be added in the Chattanooga market coming out of the pandemic.
“The pandemic intimidated us, but we didn’t lose confidence,” said Roshan Amin, president and CEO of the Dynamic Group, which he helped create in 2011. “I think we were a little bit ahead of the other developers, and we’re seeing more of them building now.”
At least eight hotels are under construction in the Chattanooga and Cleveland area, while others are being renovated or expanded even as more short-term vacation rental homes are also offering overnight stays in the region. But during a ribbon-cutting Tuesday for Dynamic’s newest hotel in Hixson, Amin said the local market remains robust.
“We’re heavily invested in our hometown, and we love to see the shared success of the Scenic City,” Jonathan Armstrong, regional sales and marketing director for the Dynamic Group, said during Tuesday’s celebration of the opening of the 90-room TownPlace Suites by Marriott.
Dynamic spent $14 million to construct the five-story hotel on Highway 153. Armstrong said it’s the first new hotel to be built in Hixson in nearly two decades and the first Marriott franchise in Hixson.
Amin said all three of the new hotels Dynamic has built in the past year “are ramping up as expected from an occupancy perspective and are doing even better than we expected for revenues.
“There was a lot of pent-up demand to travel after COVID, and we’re seeing business travel come back as well,” he said.
Despite predictions by some economists of a slower economy by the end of the year, Amin and other Chattanooga hotel developers are continuing to add to their portfolio, investing more than $100 million in new hotels still coming on the market. Three hotels are under development at the Shallowford Road exit in East Brainerd, where 24 hotels are already open, and Dynamic and the Chattanooga-based 3H Group also building new hotels at the Paul Huff Parkway exit on Interstate 75 in Cleveland, where a Hampton Inn hotel is already operating.
At exit 27 on I-75, Dynamic Group is building a 118-room Courtyard by Marriott near where the 3H Group is constructing an 88-room StayAPT. The new Cleveland hotels are projected to open by early 2024.
The new $13 million StayAPT will offer extended, apartment-like lodging options, said Hiren Desai, president of the 3H Group.
“Cleveland is a growing area, and we think this type of option catering more to extended stays will prove popular,” Desai said.
Dynamic’s Courtyard by Marriott next door to the new StayAPT in Cleveland represents a $21 million investment and should cater to both business and leisure travelers, Armstrong said.
“Cleveland has a lot of multinational industry. so we get a lot of corporate business there, and Interstate 75 is obviously a major north-south thoroughfare that gets a lot of leisure travelers as well,” Amin said.
The Dynamic Group is building another hotel in Tampa, Florida, this year as it continues to expand across the Southeast with seven hotels either built or under construction. The 3H Group has two dozen hotels open or being built in six Southeastern states, including a Holiday Inn Express Candlewood Suites under construction on Shallowford Road in Chattanooga.
