Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. announced that it forecasts another year of accelerated growth in North America after the company opened a number of hotels in 2014.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. announced on Wednesday that it forecasts another year of accelerated growth in North America after the company opened a number of hotels in 2014.

Starwood, which expects to surpass the 600th hotel milestone in the next two months, opened 23 new hotels and 64 new hotel deals in North America in 2014, a 23 percent increase over 2013. The 64 hotel deals marked the most deals inked in one year since the global economic crisis.

The company’s growth includes the rapid expansion of its Specialty Select Brands, the continued growth of its Upper Upscale brands and increased demand for luxury hotel offerings.

“North America remains one of Starwood’s most important global markets accounting for approximately 50 percent of our global portfolio and a third of our hotel openings in 2014, and we expect strong growth trends to continue this year,” said Simon Turner, president of global development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., via a press release. “The ongoing economic recovery and increased availability of financing are creating favorable conditions, contributing to strong growth across all three segments of our business and a notable surge in demand for new-build hotels, which comprised 81 percent of our North America signings in 2014.”

“We are experiencing robust growth across all nine of our globally admired lifestyle brands, both for new build projects and the repositioning of existing assets,” added Allison Reid, senior vice president of North America development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. “We highly value our relationships with our owners and franchisees, and continue to see strong interest from partners looking to leverage Starwood’s powerful brands and network, global booking platforms and loyal customer base.”

Starwood’s Specialty Select brands—Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft and Element—continue to be a focus for the Connecticut-headquartered hospitality company. Starwood expects its Specialty Select brands to surpass the 200thhotel milestone this year after signing 53 deals in the segment in North America last year. Hotel signings increased year-over-year for the fifth straight year in 2014. Specialty Select brands made up 83 percent of Starwood’s signings in North America during the calendar year.

Four Points by Sheraton, which boasts the second largest global pipeline of all Starwood brands, is on course to open its 125th hotel in North America in 2015. The brand, which labels itself “best for business,” expects to open 15 new hotels in the region this year, including debuts in Las Vegas, Coral Gables, and Raleigh. Other major openings will include Four Points by Sheraton New York Downtown—the brand’s fourth hotel in New York City—and Four Points by Sheraton Houston-Katy, its fourth hotel in Houston. Four Points by Sheraton alone signed 17 new deals in North America in 2014, the most in one year since 2007.

Starwood’s Aloft brand, which smartly caters to the next generation of travelers, will open its 75th hotel in North America in 2015. The brand will debut an adaptive re-use project in Sunnyvale, Calif. later this year after two adaptive re-use openings in 2014 (Aloft Tampa Downtown and Aloft Detroit at the David Whitney).

In 2015, Aloft will debut in 12 cities, including New Orleans, Durham and Sarasota, while building its portfolio further in the New York City metropolitan area with the openings of Aloft Manhattan-Downtown and Aloft Long Island City. Aloft Hotels signed 22 deals in North America in 2014, more than any other Starwood brand in the region and the most signings in one year for the brand since 2008.

Starwood’s eco-focused Element brand is on track to open its 15th hotel in North America this year, with the addition of four new hotels, including debuts in several new markets such as Bozeman, Mont.; and Fargo, N.D. Element will also introduce its second hotel in Miami (Element Miami Doral) and its second in Canada (Element Vancouver Metrotown). By 2017, Starwood expects Element’s global portfolio to triple. It signed 14 deals in North America in 2014, the most in one year since the brand’s launch. The brand is on course to open its first adaptive re-use project in 2017, centered in Moline, Ill.

Starwood includes itself in a recent movement to add dual-branded hotels. There are Aloft-Element projects scheduled for early 2016 (Aloft and Element Boston Waterfront) and 2017 (Aloft and Element Fort Lauderdale and Aloft and Element Redmond).

Starwood also expects to build on its large portfolio of upper-upscale hotels featured in the Sheraton, Westin and Le Méridien brands. In 2014, Starwood signed deals to open nine upper-upscale hotels in North America in the next three years.

Le Meridien will debut a property in Columbus this year after last year’s openings in Charlotte, Indianapolis, New Orleans and Greater Chicago.

Westin Hotels, which focuses on health and wellness, will open its 125th hotel in North America in 2015. Westin is slated to introduce hotels in Jekyll Island, Ga.; Austin, Texas; Denver, Colo.; and San Jose, Calif.

Sheraton Hotels, which currently boasts Starwood’s largest development pipeline, is on track to introduce its 500th hotel in 2016. The brand will add four new hotels to its North American portfolio in the next two years, nearly all of which will be new-builds. The brand will open hotels in McKinney, Texas and Mesa, Ariz., and break ground in Georgetown, Texas.

Starwood also currently features more than 50 luxury hotels in North America under its St. Regis, W Hotels and Luxury Collection brands.

After the renovation of The St. Regis New York, the St. Regis brand will unveil the renovation of its iconic St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort later this year. The Luxury Collection will also open three properties in North America in the next year, including the opening of The St. Anthony, a Luxury Collection Hotel, San Antonio, in 2015.

W Hotels will continue to expand in Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Montreal, Seattle, San Francisco, South Beach and Times Square, New York.

Starwood currently features more than 1,200 properties in 100 countries.