Three “major hotels” are in the works to be built in Richmond Hill, their developer announced Friday.RS Hospitality plans to construct “two major mid-scale luxury hotel franchises” off Interstate 95’s exit 87 and later add a third hotel at exit 90, Richmond Hill-Bryan County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Brianne Yontz said.The first of the two hotels planned for the intersection of Ponderosa Road and Highway 17 “should be out of the ground shortly,” RS Hospitality President Jitan Patel said.He expects it to be operational in six months to a year.“As soon as that one is up and running, we can start construction on the next one,” Patel said.The developer anticipates that those two hotels will combine to have 182 rooms, according to Yontz. The franchises that will operate them have not yet been finalized, Patel said.The third property planned is an extended-stay hotel with about 80 rooms off I-95’s exit 90. A timetable for that has not been announced other than that it is in RS Hospitality’s “long-range plan,” Patel said.The Richmond Hill Convention and Visitors Bureau is “thrilled about the news of new hotels,” Executive Director Christy Sherman said.Sherman quoted figures from 2013, the most recent data, that Bryan County’s tourism industry generated $39.5 million in direct tourist spending, created $1.38 million in local tax revenues and supported 360 jobs.