Oct. 22–The reconstruction of four hotels along North Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West, initially set to be completed earlier this year, won’t be entirely finished until February.

Reconstruction of the four hotels, the Comfort Inn, Days Inn, Lexington Hotel and Quality Inn, started in June 2013 when the Comfort Inn closed its doors.

J.L. Woode, a development firm with offices in Charleston, S.C., and Chicago, initially owned all four original properties, according to Monroe County business tax records. However, Texas-based Highgate Hotels now owns the four new, rebranded hotels.

Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Lodging Association of the Florida Keys and Key West, said the first two properties, the Gates Hotel Key West and the Fairfield Inn, will open around Dec. 15. The next two, the Hampton Inn and the Hilton Garden Inn, will open around Feb. 15.

A reason behind the delay in construction was not immediately made clear.

The four hotels make up about 534 rooms, or 10 percent of all hotel rooms in Key West. Still, Weinhofer said that the properties needed to be upgraded and she’s eager for the rooms to be back online.

“It’s probably better that they did this all at once,” she said.

Weinhofer said the hotel construction has “probably increased some of the rates” at other lodgings. However, hotels up the Keys have not seen an increase in demand because of the hotel closings.

Pam Bradshaw, general manager at Coconut Cay Resort & Marina in Marathon, said her resort has received its usual set of reservations, with a few last-minute bookings expected by the weekend.

“The midweek has been a little slower, I don’t know why,” Bradshaw said. “We’ll get our last-minute rooms, though, and we should be filling up.”

Despite the Key West hotel closings, the hotel occupancy rate across Key West was almost 86 percent as of August, a 2.4 percent increase compared to August 2013, according to numbers from room-occupancy reporting agency Smith Travel. Monroe Countywide, the rate is almost 79 percent.

Excluding rooms under construction, the Southernmost City has almost 4,800 rooms, according to April 2014 data from the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

Nonetheless, hotel occupancy has not been affected by the triangle construction along North Roosevelt Boulevard, especially with upcoming events like this Saturday’s Fantasy Fest parade.

“Most people don’t just come to one section of the Keys,” Weinhofer said. “Each area has its own personality.”