According to the Pittsburgh Builders Exchange, bids are being taken by Tri-C Construction for a new 80-room Holiday Inn Express in Butler, PA. The new hotel will be on North Duffy Rd. across from the Butler VA Hospital in the Butler Crossings shopping center that is being developed by Tri-C’s parent company, Cedarwood Development. The property is the first of 2 hotels planned for the same corridor. Horizon Properties from Southpointe received approval from Butler Township to develop another 80-room hotel less than a mile away on New Castle Rd., this one a Hampton Inn flag.

The more inexplicable project is a third hotel but a few mile away in downtown Butler. The city redevelopment agencies received an RCAP grant to make an 80+ room hotel happen behind Main Street near McKean St. Developer J S Capital – the owners of the Fairfield Inn up in Slippery Rock – is reportedly involved in the Butler project, which will be a Marriott flag.

There are actually some fundamentals supporting these 200+ rooms of new hotels. For one, the gas industry is more steadily mobilizing in Butler County. Western Butler is adjacent to the more active areas in PA right now because of the Utica Shale exploration that is taking place in Lawrence and Mercer Counties. More importantly, the occupancy and revenue per room umbers for the limited hotels in the Butler area are relatively high. With a new medical center being built at the VA, visitation is expected to increase. The state aid for the downtown project also props up the fundamentals, reducing the private developers exposure significantly.