An expansion underway at Comfort Inn & Suites will increase Hermiston’s hotel capacity by 35 rooms.

The hotel, located by the Space Age fuel station near Interstate 84 exit 182, is also planning to update its existing 65 rooms by adding new carpet, furniture and wall coverings.

“We basically want it to match up to the new section,” co-owner Jim Pliska said.

The 35 new rooms will include six suites and three or four handicap-accessible rooms. Pliska said construction is expected to wrap up in November. A few of the hotel’s current rooms will be closed at a time while they are re-carpeted, but the hotel will remain open throughout the construction phase.

Pliska said the hotel will hire between five and 10 new employees when the project is complete.

Pliska owns the Hermiston Comfort Inn & Suites, franchised by lodging company Choice Hotels, with his father Harold Pliska. He described the hotel as an affordable “mid-level” lodging option.

“It should be nicer once we get done,” he said.

He said the hotel should not have trouble utilizing the new rooms, since it is often “running up against capacity” now.

The anecdotal evidence is backed up by hard numbers: In 2014 the 434 hotel rooms in Hermiston averaged 69.6 percent occupancy, with some hotels filling up completely during large sporting tournaments in town. According to information presented by the city in 2013, Hermiston’s occupancy rate tends to be about 8 percent higher than the state average and 19 percent higher than the rest of Eastern Oregon.

Hermiston will get another boost in hotel capacity in July 2016, when a recently announced four-story Holiday Inn Express is expected to open on the corner of Hermiston Avenue and Highway 395.