ANAHEIM, Calif.
The Anaheim City Council voted recently in favor of a 200,000-square-foot expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center, which will represent the seventh expansion in the convention center’s 47-year history.
The $180-million expansion project will create a state-of-the-art multipurpose, flexible meeting and exhibit space. The location of the site is the current area known as Car Park 1 on Katella Avenue.
The development will involve the replacement of existing parking spaces, addition of new loading docks, vehicular entrance and a climate-controlled pedestrian bridge that will connect to the existing facility. The project is slated to begin late summer of 2014 and is expected to be completed by fall of 2016.
“This expansion will elevate the status of the Anaheim Convention Center as an all-encompassing meeting, convention and trade show venue,” said Jay Burress, president and CEO, Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau. “This new modern, multipurpose space is designed to keep pace with the trends in the meetings market and is a welcome addition to Anaheim’s world-class convention campus.”
Turner Construction Company and architecture firm Populous were selected to provide the design-build services for this project. Both Turner and Populous have enjoyed tremendous success and longevity in their respective fields and are known as leaders in the convention center design and construction industry, as well as design-build contracting.
In 2013 the Anaheim Convention Center held a total of 238 events with more than one million combined attendees. This includes conventions, tradeshows, meetings and consumer events.
The Anaheim Convention Center first opened its doors in 1967. Today, the 1.6-million-square-foot facility is the largest convention center on the West Coast. The center features 815,000 square feet of exhibit space, 130,000 square feet of meeting space and an array of outdoor function space that includes the 100,000-square-foot Grand Plaza, which opened January 2013.
The Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau (AOCVCB) is Anaheim and Orange County’s largest destination marketing organization. It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Anaheim/Orange County as a premier leisure, convention and meeting destination. More than 44 million travelers visited the Anaheim/Orange County area in 2013, generating more than $9.6 billion in revenue and creating nearly 156,000 tourism-related jobs.
