Dallas-based Founders Development Company is planning to build a four-story, extended-stay hotel on Wurzbach Road in the South Texas Medical Center.

It’s one of five new extended-stay hotels being built in San Antonio. These types of projects are a growing part of the hospitality market, according to data from real estate research firm CoStar.

Founders Development CEO Cary Clarke said the hotel, an Echo Suites, is a new product from Wyndham Hotels and Resorts that targets guests who need to stay for weeks or even months.

Rooms will have kitchen areas where guests can cook their own meals and the hotel will ditch a restaurant and conference rooms for laundry and fitness center. Clarke hasn’t determined the exact price yet, he added, but estimated room nights will cost less than $100.

“It’s very tailored. A majority of the square footage is oriented toward the extended-stay traveler,” Clarke said. “We can keep our costs down because we don’t have to spend money on conference rooms or restaurant space or anything like that.”

Clarke anticipates starting construction early 2027 with an opening date 13 months after, in early 2028.

More hospitality in the South Texas Medical Center

Positioned near multiple hospitals between Babcock Road and Medical Drive, Clarke hopes that visiting doctors and nurses will utilize the hotel’s 124 rooms, along with patients and their family members from across the region.

“It’s not going to be targeting the guy that’s bringing his family to SeaWorld for the weekend,” Clarke said. “There are a lot of people in that area who need places to stay for an extended period of time.”

It’s not the only hotel being built in the Medical Center.

Methodist Healthcare Ministries is building a 250-room hotel, a combination of a Hilton Garden Inn and a Home 2 Suites by Hilton, on Floyd Curl Drive and Wurzbach Road. That hotel is set to open in late 2028 or early 2029 and will include discount rooms for low-income visitors.

The Methodist hotel is the first development in Ministry Park, a mixed-use project that could eventually include residential and retail buildings.

Extended-stay trend

Extended-stay hotels have become popular in San Antonio, said Didio Pequeno, director of hospitality marketing analytics at real estate research firm CoStar.

“There’s 983 rooms under construction and just under half — 47.2% — are extended-stay,” Pequeno said. “When you have extended stay rooms that are [almost] 50% of construction, that sounds high to me.

Of nine hotels being built this year in San Antonio, five are extended-stay. It’s high compared to other cities, said Pequeno, who also covers markets on the East Coast, in the Midwest and in Canada.

Pequeno said those types of hotels are cheaper to operate, which could drive their development in an expensive market with higher borrowing, fuel and material costs.

“Extended-stay properties tend to have better profit margins because they’re light on labor,” he added.

Pequeno said extended-stay hotels tend to be close to centers of demand, like hospitals. Three such hotels are also being built near Camp Bullis at Joint Base San Antonio, he added, to cater to visitors coming for military-related reasons.

Clarke is considering those same consumers with another hotel project near Lackland Air Force Basis.

Founders Development will be a franchisee of Wyndham. Clarke has rights to four more hotels in South Central Texas, he said. He’s planning one in College Station, another in New Braunfels and two more in San Antonio.

One will be near Lackland off of Loop 410. That project is about 90 days behind the Echo Suites in the Medical Center, which Clarke hopes will open in February 2028.

This is Clarke’s first foray into the hospitality industry.

With commercial development slowing across the country amidst high fuel prices, interest rates and construction costs, Clarke is hoping he can bring a new product to the market at a time when many others are backing off and decreasing supply.

“We try to look for areas where there is a huge demand for an asset class and we build it and we own and operate it,” he said. “There’s a big demand for this type of project.”