Hotels are booked with thousands of football fans arriving in South Bend for Saturday's Notre Dame-Georgia game.

Every home football weekend could mean tens of thousands of dollars for Michiana hotels.

And a handful of new hotels are now being built in South Bend.

The shuttles are fueled and ready for football fans at the Inn at St. Mary's.

“They do start arriving today, a lot more tomorrow,” Inn at St. Mary’s general manager Kim Allsop said.

Front desks all over South Bend and Mishawaka will accommodate thousands of ticket holders in town for Saturday's Notre Dame game.

“It's about $15 million for every home game,” Rob DeCleene said. DeCleene is the executive director for Visit South Bend Mishawaka.

The economic impact means you'd be hard pressed to find a vacant room for Friday or Saturday. But driving through town, you'll see nearly a half dozen new hotels being built.

“By the end of 2018, we're forecasting an additional 750 rooms,” Allsop said, who’s also the president of the Hotel Motel Association of St. Joseph County.

The newest will happen this month when Aloft opens its doors in the former Chase tower.

“They literally took that building down to the studs,” DeCleene said.

Workers are tearing down the old K-mart on Ireland. A few hundred feet away, the new Holiday Inn Express is taking shape.

“They're framing the upper floors as we speak, so that one has an April 2018 opening,” Dan Boecher with JSK Hospitality said.

Boecher is also overseeing the new Courtyard by Marriott, the newest neighbor of the Century Center, which was originally planned to open before Christmas.

“To try to push this thing through and get it in calendar year 2017, didn't make a lot of sense, so we're taking the attack of get it right the first time,” Boecher said.

Boecher says the new opening date may happen by Valentine's Day. But by the time the Irish finish the 2018 season, South Bend's hotel market is expected to grow to 5,000 rooms.

“They must know something we don't, because this market simply can't withstand all of the new product coming in,” Allsop said.

Developers say in the case of downtown South Bend, it'll be conventions, not necessarily Irish home games that keep them in the black.

“We were able to bid on some of the smaller conventions, but they were limited on what they could even go after and put a bid on because we had so few hotels that were adjacent to the Century Center,” Boecher said.

“We certainly appreciate what Notre Dame brings to the area. However, you just can't survive off football weekends,” Allsop said.

The Aloft opening downtown was delayed a few weeks.

The new hotel is now aiming to open Tuesday, September 26th.

Boecher says he's also in talks to move JSK's offices into the former College Football Hall of Fame over the next few years to be next door to the Courtyard, depending on the success of the new hotel.