Led by the mammoth 612-room Omni, eight hotels are in the works for the Louisville area, The Courier-Journal said today, and if completed, they’ll add 1,500 more rooms at a total cost of $850 million. The Omni has started construction, and hopes to open by spring 2018.

But all those additional rooms may not be enough to satisfy demand once the Kentucky International Convention Center expansion is done; the center will close in mid-August for two years.

There are just under 15,000 hotel rooms in Jefferson County, and 18,670 in the metro area, including nearby Kentucky and Indiana counties. But compare that to other metros in the region that compete for convention and other big-meeting business:

• St. Louis: 38,000
• Indianapolis: 33,000
• Cincinnati: 37,700
• Nashville: 26,600.