The UpTown Suites construction site off Weddington Road near Speedway Blvd.is on the far right. The new hotel will join the Hampton Inn and Suites, left, and the Wingate by Windham hotel, right, that already line Weddington Road. Photo by Marty Price

By Marty Price. InTown Suites broke ground on its newest upscale brand, UpTown Suites, on Jan. 29 in Concord.  The new offering will have, “A higher level of service with a higher level of product,” said Jon Pertchik, CEO of InTown Suites. Indeed, the new Concord location is the flagship for the new brand. Eight to 10 of the newly acquired properties will be up-fitted to become UpTown Suites as all the company’s hotels undergo renovations in the next few years.

The new UpTown, which will have 126 suites in 52,000 square feet, is projected to be completed by January of 2017. Each suite will have a full kitchen,-with full size appliances, along with a 42 inch flat screen television and other amenities.

Geared towards families that would like to stay for as little as three days for events like the Coca-Cola 500 as well as the worker who may stay for as long as a couple of months, the suites will rent in the $75 to $80 a night, or $375 to $400 a week.

Dirt is being removed at the UpTown Suites construction site off Weddington Road near Speedway Blvd. in Concord, NC. Photo by Marty Price

The hotel group is 25 years old and is currently owned by Starwood Capital Group, a private investment firm. InTown bought 50 existing properties in 2015, bringing their total number of hotels to 189 in 22 states.

Concord is at the intersection of growth and expansion. “We looked for cities with the highest forecasted job growth and the highest forecasted population.  Where those two metrics intersected gave us the top 10-15 locations in our search,” Pertchik said. “When we found the town of Concord as an area, in particular that site, we knew we had a home run,” said Pertchik.  The site is located just off Weddington Road, alongside several other hotels near the intersection with Bruton Smith Boulevard.

The new UpTown Suites and a new 120-room Homewood Suites are the first two hotels under construction in Cabarrus since the spring of 2010. Not including Great Wolf Lodge, occupancy was 65.5 percent for calendar year 2015.

Travis Dancy, director of sales for Visit Lake Norman, said that the last hotel that opened in the Lake Norman area was exactly five years ago. There are no plans for a new hotel at this time.

Visit Lake Norman says the 20 hotels in the region overall had a 61.1 percent occupancy rate last year.

“I do think we will see additional hotel growth.  We’ve seen an increase in occupancy every year since 2010 and the demand is there,” said Dancy. “There is definitely a need for a full-service hotel (generally defined as a hotel with a large amount of meeting space, a food & beverage dept./restaurant and concierge service) in the market,” he said.