For several years now, the overwhelming consensus has been that downtown Tucson is in desperate need of new lodging to accommodate their bustling tourism market. The Rio Nuevo Board, a local group that invests state tax dollars in public and private projects, recently signed an agreement that could make this dream a reality by bringing two new hotels to the downtown area.

Moxy is a Marriott-branded hotel known for catering its style toward Millennials. This hotel will be located west of Hotel Congress, above the Depot Garage. The developer for this project is Scott Steitler, who is currently constructing an A.C. Marriott hotel at East Broadway and Fifth Avenue.

The second hotel doesn’t have a national brand associated with it yet, but Caliber Hospitality, based out of Scottsdale, is planning to build a 125-bed hotel in the east parking lot of the newly remodeled Tucson Convention Center. The Rio Nuevo Board stated that the proposal for this hotel will very likely include a new parking garage, since the hotel must provide six parking spaces for every five parking spaces it displaces during construction.

Both hotels are being built strictly through private funding. The Board noted that the developers will be allowed to keep a portion of generated sales taxes from each property. Caliber Hospitality will be allowed to keep a sales tax revenue minimum of $2.5 million. Stiteler doesn’t have a minimum total but stops the amount at $5.7 million by 2025. The goal is to have these hotels ready to open to the public by 2018.

There have also been talks underway over the possibility of renovating the currently-closed Hotel Arizona and constructing a new hotel in the vacant lot south of the Federal Courthouse and west of the convention center. These plans, however, have not been approved.