With a healthy spirit of competition that has a big payoff for meetings, California’s major convention cities have long been in a race to boast the biggest and the best convention center. Here’s a look at what is currently in progress.
Anaheim Convention Center
Currently awaiting city approval is an expansion to the Anaheim Convention Center that would add 200,000 square feet of meeting and exhibit space facing Katella Avenue, along with an underground parking structure. Construction is expected to begin next summer.
Meanwhile, the center unveiled a new outdoor event space earlier this year called the Grand Plaza. Located at the entrance to the center, it is landscaped with dozens of palm and citrus trees, water features and a 48-foot entry monument.
“Groups are really using this new outdoor space—it’s given us a real campus feel,” says Elaine Cali, vice president of communications for the Anaheim/ Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau. “We’ve had everything from a picnic under the stars with little lights strung in the trees to a new product launch with a flash mob.”
Moscone Center
Ground is expected to break next year on a $500 million expansion of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, adding 300,000 to 400,000 square feet to the facility, including 80,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space and an enclosed pedestrian bridge connecting Moscone North and Moscone South. The first phase of the expansion is scheduled to be completed in 2018 and will be built to achieve LEED Gold certification.
The existing center, which offers 700,000 square feet of exhibit space, is currently filled to capacity, according to Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association.
“San Francisco has already lost meetings representing $2.057 billion in direct spending as a result of space limitations for meetings between 2010 and 2019,” he says.
San Diego Convention Center
A proposed expansion of the sail-roofed San Diego Convention Center won approval from the Port of San Diego and the San Diego City Council and is awaiting reviews from the California Coastal Commission. With completion targeted for 2016, the expansion would add an 80,000-square-foot ballroom, 101,000 square feet of meeting room space and 225,000 square feet of exhibit space, giving it the largest contiguous exhibit hall on the West Coast.
It would also create a new rooftop public park with views of the city and bay and 42,000 square feet of retail space fronting the bay. Also expected to accompany it is a new 500-room tower expansion to the adjacent Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel.
San Jose Convention Center
This month heralds the grand opening of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center’s fist significant expansion since it opened in 1989. Highlights of the 125,000-square-foot expansion and renovation are a new 35,110-square-foot grand ballroom, increased breakout space, a lobby lounge called The Hub and new outdoor event space. The center also features a sleek new design and such sustainable architectural features as reclaimed redwood ceilings. The expanded areas were designed to achieve LEED Silver certification.
“We’ve been providing tours to showcase the new space, and our clients have been really wowed by it,” says Meghan Horrigan, director of communications for Team San Jose, the city’s CVB. “There’s a lot more light and better technology, and it makes a modern, outstanding first impression.”
