SAN JOSE, Calif.
City and Team San Jose Officials have celebrated the official grand opening of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center’s recent $130 million renovation and expansion. The new Convention Center offers 125,000 square feet of additional flexible ballroom and meeting room space, increasing the facility’s space to 550,000 square feet of usable space and making San Jose even more competitive as a meetings and events destination. Team San Jose has already secured 178 new business opportunities using the expanded space, a third of which are new to San Jose.
The recently installed public artwork of Idea Tree, which provides an iconic, artistic, interactive and technology driven element to the main convention center entrance is a gateway for conference attendees and visitors to network. Additional key Convention Center features include: revamped lobby with sit steps where convention attendees can plug in and network between sessions; new networking lounge; more breakout rooms; additional flexible meeting spaces; event spaces with bright California colors including reclaimed redwood ceilings; modern high-tech feel – with the state-of-the-art Silicon Valley infrastructure to back it up; and a new open plaza entrance facing Downtown San Jose for networking and outdoor event hosting.
The Convention Center’s $130 million renovation and expansion project was funded through a dedicated hotel tax voted by San Jose hoteliers in 2009 to help improve San Jose’s long-term competitiveness and increase business for hotels and other businesses near the center, such as theaters, restaurants, museums and nightlife. By legal requirement, the tax can only be used to support capital improvements at the Convention Center and includes ongoing revenue for future capital needs.
