Three hotels valued at a total exceeding $26 million are under construction or planned to be this year near Spokane International Airport.

Spokane County has issued a building permit for a $10 million, 85-unit La Quinta Inn hotel at 4611 S. Dowdy Road. The site is on vacant land visible from Interstate 90 south of the airport, near the northeast corner of Geiger Boulevard and Dowdy Road.

Surinder Kehla, managing broker with Kent, Wash.-based Better Properties Real Estate who represents an ownership group led by Moses Lake, Wash.-based hotelier Mohinder Brar, says his clients are seeking financing for the project.

“We’re itching to get the project off the ground and hope to be breaking ground in the next few months,” Kehla says.

On the north side of the airport, the city of Spokane issued a building permit in late August for $10-million, 109-unit Marriot Springhill Suites hotel to be constructed at 9000 W. Airport Drive. Sitework for that project has begun.

Tharldson Hospitality, of Fargo, N.D., is the contractor on the four-story, 71,000-square-foot project, and Designcell Architecture, of Las Vegas, designed it.

The project site is across Airport Drive from airport’s main concourse, north of the airport parking garages and just south of a Ramada Inn hotel.

Building permit application information shows the hotel will have an indoor swimming pool, an outdoor patio, and a controlled-entry parking lot.

Kaul Design Associates, of Federal Way, Wash., designed the planned four-story 55,000-square foot hotel, which will have a lobby-area bar and restaurant, a meeting room with a 70-person capacity, a breakfast room, a great room, a guest laundry room, and a guest barbecue area with picnic tables.

With the third project, construction is well underway on a $6.3 million, 87-guestroom Sleep Inn/Mainstay hotel at 3809 S. Geiger Blvd., adjacent to the Flying J Travel Plaza near the Geiger-Interstate 90 interchange.

Consolidated Construction Co., of Bismarck, N.D., is the contractor on the project, and M+A Design Inc., of Fond Du Lac, Wis., designed it. Consolidated Construction has razed the former Airway Express Inn to make room for the Sleep Inn/Mainstay hotel at the site.

The hotel will include an indoor swimming pool and spa, a breakfast area, and a small bar and lounge.