Investors seem to see potential here because the supply of rooms hasn’t grown along with demand. Downtown lost 780 rooms when the Millennium Hotel, a cylindrical landmark on the riverfront, closed in 2014.

The aging Millennium, though, typically charged less than $100 a night. If the new hotels hope to get twice as much, they will be aiming at a different market.

“Mom, Dad and the kids who are coming to see the Arch and a ballgame, they’re not going to spend $200 a night,” Andreas said.

Andreas believes the area can absorb some new hotel rooms, but not as many as have been proposed. He predicts that the projects in Clayton and the Central West End will perform OK, as will the first few to open downtown.

Projects that aren’t as far along, he said, “could face financing issues. Lenders will look at the last two or three trying to get into downtown and say, ‘Let’s hold off a couple or three years because there’s a flood going on.’”

It’s encouraging that investors are willing to bet on downtown’s future as a business and tourism destination, but their enthusiasm risks creating too much of a good thing. Unless something happens to boost demand, such as a convention center expansion, the developers should expect market forces to winnow out some of the supply.

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