Tampa Hotels

The 1927 Florida Hotel building may soon get a rennovation as developer Antonios Markopoulus seeks to turn the rotting building into a 300+ room luxury hotel. However, there are 6 other hotels planned for downtown Tampa, which will add 1200 rooms to the 2200 rooms already available (Tampa Tribue 4/29/05). I am all for salvaging a little bit of down town during this latest attempt to force life into the area, but who is going to stay in these hotels and what are they going to do while they are there? The convention center and marriot land national conferences, but are not booked as often as they should be; people don't exactly thing of downtown tampa as a great place for tourists, and the area isn't exactly beachfront, while it is waterfront. I wonder what the occupancy rate is right now for the 2200 rooms that already exist downtown? For some reason, I doubt its close to capacity and I am also skeptical that the recent develompent and planned changes are going to start pulling in downtown overnighters by the thousands (or by 1200 in this case).