Convention business fills rooms in blocks, and a hall with 60,818 square feet of column-free exhibit space and a 30 foot ceiling puts a great many visitors into beds on the same nights. That is the demand story behind hotel building in McAllen: events at the convention center, a medical district that brings patients and families, an airport that handled more than 1.1 million passengers in 2025, and cross-border travel that never fully stops.
A hotel is built twice, once as a building and once as a brand. The building needs structure, envelope, fire protection, a repeated room module and public areas that work at full occupancy. The brand needs exact finishes, furniture, signage and system standards from the flag, and it will inspect against them before the hotel opens. We coordinate the two so the owner does not pay for a change order every time a brand reviewer visits.
Select-service hotels, extended-stay properties and full-service hotels with meeting space each have a different cost profile. A hotel pad is also often part of a larger retail or mixed-use plan, so the notes on retail shopping centers and mixed-use buildings may help you decide how to fit lodging into a bigger site.
Every hotel is a room module repeated a hundred times, so the first decision is the module itself: width, depth, bath location, corridor arrangement and how plumbing stacks. A good module saves money on every room, and a bad one multiplies the cost. We sit with the owner, architect and brand representative to confirm the module before the structural system is finalized. Wood-frame construction is typical for limited-service properties of modest height. Concrete or steel framing enters when the building gets taller, includes large ballrooms or shares a podium with parking.
We then price the public areas separately. Lobby, breakfast room, fitness area, pool deck and meeting space carry finishes and mechanical loads far above the guest rooms, and brands often tell owners which spaces can be reduced. Owners who see the module price and the public-space price side by side can decide where to spend. Our hospitality and hotel construction service describes the delivery process in detail.
A hotel's revenue starts on a date, and that date is set by a sequence of inspections and deliveries: framing, rough-ins, drywall, finishes, furniture, fixtures and equipment, fire alarm acceptance, state and city inspections and a brand pre-opening review. Furniture and fixtures arrive from overseas on long timelines. We recommend that owners begin procurement as soon as drawings permit, in line with our guidance on long-lead procurement, because a hotel with finished rooms and no beds does not open.
Weather rarely stops work for long in the Valley, but wind and rain can interrupt exterior work during the summer storm season. We schedule roofing, windows and stucco so that the building is dried in before the highest-risk months, and we protect interior finishes in place. When a project must open for a convention, a seasonal peak or a franchise agreement deadline, we price acceleration options such as overtime, additional crews and prefabricated bathroom pods early, so the owner can choose with numbers.
The city's adopted budget lists the convention center exhibit hall at about 60,000 square feet and the ballroom at 10,000 square feet, reports fiscal 2022-23 attendance of 704,875 and states a goal of designing and building a 16,000 square foot storage facility. Attendance of that scale supports hotels in the immediate area, and group business is easier to win when rooms are within walking distance or a short drive. The convention center and 10th Street district is the obvious location for full-service product.
Two developments could change the picture. A plan announced in October 2025 would redevelop the 70 acre Boeye Reservoir site near the center into a mixed-use district with housing, retail and hospitality, and the city says it is still in planning and design. At the airport, the city has considered a $160 million expansion adding terminal space and parking, with work possibly starting in 2027, and the master plan describes four more gates. Hotels near the McAllen airport should watch those dates, but an owner should underwrite a hotel on demand that exists today.
Hotels are among the most heavily regulated buildings. Fire sprinklers, alarm systems, smoke control, egress, accessible rooms and pool safety all come under review. McAllen adopted the 2024 International Code Council codes, including the swimming pool and spa code, and the 2023 National Electrical Code effective January 1, 2026. Projects costing $50,000 or more must also be registered and reviewed with the state for the Texas Accessibility Standards, and hotels are well above that threshold.
Windstorm certification is a separate question for coastal counties. The state insurance department publishes zone pages for Cameron and Willacy counties and notes that applications for windstorm certificates must use the 2024 codes from April 1, 2026. Owners building in Hidalgo County should ask their insurer and designer whether a wind certificate is needed, and we confirm the answer before pricing the envelope.
Three amenities add more complexity than owners expect. A pool needs separate structural and mechanical work, state and local review, and a deck that drains safely. Parking counts depend on rooms, restaurant seats and meeting space, and a hotel with a ballroom may need a parking structure or shared parking with a neighbor. A commercial kitchen brings grease, exhaust and utility demands, even if only a breakfast service.
The site plan should also leave room for loading, trash, laundry service and shuttle vehicles. These back-of-house needs are easy to overlook in early sketches, but fire access and truck turning radii can reshape a lot at the end of design. We review those paths with the fire marshal and the operator before the site is finalized.
Hotels use many of our core services: site development, concrete and masonry, framing, roofing, finishes and commissioning. Owners who want a single contract from concept through opening may choose design-build delivery, which keeps the architect, brand reviewer and builder in one conversation.
For hospitality groups with a portfolio, repeatable details matter. We build a library of prototype notes, supplier lead times and inspection lessons from each hotel so that the next one is cheaper and faster. See how hospitality groups work with us on multi-property programs.
Send us the parcel, the brand or segment you are considering and your target opening date. We will return a sequence, a price range and the items most likely to move the budget.
It depends on lot size, parking, setbacks, building height and the brand's requirements. We run a quick test fit before you buy land, using the city's rules and the brand's prototype, to show a realistic room count.
Often, for limited-service hotels of moderate height, with fire-rated assemblies and sprinklers. Taller or larger buildings may need concrete or steel. The architect and code review decide the final type.
Furniture and equipment delivery, brand reviews and fire alarm acceptance. We schedule procurement early and invite the brand representative to a mid-project walk-through to catch issues while they are cheap to fix.
The area saw Hurricane Hanna in 2020. We design the envelope, roof attachment, windows and drainage for the wind and rain the codes require and confirm any insurer requirements before finalizing.
Yes, and the city's recent Unified Development Code update was written to encourage mixed-use projects. Shared parking, utilities and site approvals can reduce cost, but they add coordination.