NEW YORK (AP) — While planning her vacation to New York, Lisa Werness was so horrified by the prices in Manhattan that she opted for cheaper lodging in Brooklyn — where she scored a room rate of just $400 a night.

“Don’t remind me. I’m trying to forget about it,” the Raleigh, North Carolina, resident said of the price shortly after checking in at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. “We’re just kind of biting the bullet.”

In a city where even residents often pay more than half their salaries for a place to lay their heads, visitors in need of lodging have long faced a shortage of hotel rooms and rising prices.

Now, with 8,500 hotel rooms under construction in the city — a growth of more than 10 percent — that crunch could ease ever so slightly in the coming months. By comparison, it took from 1998 to 2007 to make a leap of the same size.

“One of the challenges that New York has always had is having enough rooms for tourists,” said Sean Hennessey, CEO of industry consulting firm Lodging Investment Advisors. “Most of the time the corporate travelers are willing to pay more than the tourists, and the tourists kind of get crowded out.”

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