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Originally Posted by the urban politician
^ I don't know, I get kind of a perverted joy out of high hotel prices. I like rents to be high, hotel rates to be high, everything should be high. High prices spur more construction, and more construction is cool.
If Rahm can keep raising tourism traffic to Chicago, it's possible that hotel occupancy rates will stay steady even with the new hotels coming online. The only thing that will likely put a damper on that is recent declines in convention attendance.
I would really like to see Chicago's hotel occupancies become more decoupled from its convention business.
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Trust me, I'm by no means complaining. I think having chronic supply shortages is a good thing. It means massive growth. Again, let's keep in mind this is happening in a city with nowhere near a shortage of available development sites. Just imagine the market forces that will be at work when the vacant lots really start to dry up. It's an exponential curve, the less available sites, the more tempting the remaining ones are. The more tempting, the higher the price. The higher the price, the more intense the development. Before you know it you have an outright development goldrush.
I was just talking the other day with a development partner of mine who decamped from LA to work on projects here. He grew up here in the 1960's and left for LA when he was out of school. He said "I have a feeling that in 15 to 20 years none of us are going to regret having lived in this city at this time."
Honestly there is a feeling of something special starting to develop here. The same feeling that was beginning in the last boom. With all these civic improvement projects, billion dollar museums being thrown at us, and finally some momentum on the visibility and tourism front, there are a lot of people out there who feel this city is on the cusp.