Faced with a surge in hotel construction with the promise of more projects to come, Napa will study how many more rooms the market can handle.

Six years ago, HVS International reported that Napa could absorb 1,500 more hotel rooms, with an emphasis on higher-end projects with conference facilities.

All but 375 of those rooms are now close to being built, prompting the need for HVS to recheck market conditions in the Napa Valley, said Jennifer LaLiberté, a project coordinator with the city’s economic development department.

The City Council approved a $38,500 contract this week, with HVS expected to present a market report by early summer.

The city’s redevelopment agency is financing the study, but the city expects to recoup the cost by applying a room fee on future hotel applications, LaLiberté said.

Just as the city had hoped in 2001, downtown and the Oxbow District have become the center for new hotel development, LaLiberté said. Because financing for hotels cooled soon after the original HVS report came out, achieving a critical mass of new rooms downtown has taken longer than expected, she said.

Two downtown hotels are currently under way, the 160-room Westin Verasa on McKinstry Street and the 142-room Inn at Town Center on First Street.

A long-stalled hotel, the 351-room Napa Resort and Spa on Silverado Trail near First Street, is being reborn as a Ritz-Carlton with revised development plans expected to be submitted this spring.

These hotels are at the more expensive end of the hotel market, essentially four- and five-star projects. HVS will assess the strength of this niche for future hotels, LaLiberté said.

Early in the decade, the tourism industry complained that Napa was having to turn away larger business groups because hotels didn’t have meeting facilities that were big enough, she said.

While new projects all have had meeting space, HVS will recommend whether a much larger conference center is needed to support the new overnight accommodations, LaLiberté said.

Copia has talked about turning former exhibit space into a conference center, she said.

Half a dozen or more hotel projects representing over 300 rooms are possible over the next few years, LaLiberté said.

They include a 90-room Soscol Avenue hotel by George Altamura, conversion of the 115-room Chateau Hotel on Solano Avenue into a 196-room Kimpton Hotel, expansion of the Meritage Resort at Napa Valley Corporate Park by 120 or more rooms, an additional 25 or more rooms at La Residence on Highway 29 and a small addition to the Milliken Creek Inn.

Also, Copia is trying to sell its acreage south of First Street to a developer who would be expected to look at the site’s hotel potential.