LA Votes On Convention Center Updates

The city council selected HMC Architects and Populous June 30 to design an expansion for the center, which opened in 1971. Los Angeles has fallen behind other West Coast cities in attracting major conventions, hosting just 22 per year compared with 52 in San Francisco and 75 in San Diego, the local KPCC reported. But Los Angeles Convention Center Director Bud Ovrom said that as “bad as our situation with a tired convention center is, our situation is actually worse with hotel rooms.”

The city reportedly has 4,000 hotel rooms in walking distance of its convention center. San Francisco and Anaheim boast 20,000 and 10,000 rooms, respectively.

The room numbers will change with the inclusion of a 755-room expansion of AEG’s JW Marriott property. The Wilshire Grand is also scheduled to open downtown in 2017 and feature 900 rooms. The convention center expansion will also feature a 1,000-room hotel, KPCC noted, on the site where AEG had planned to build an NFL stadium.