Five Texas cities "catalyzing" urban development with convention centres
Nearly $9 billion of convention centre design and construction is currently underway in Texas's five biggest cities. Local writer Kate Mazade asks experts about the phenomenon and dives into the plans for each city.
From tactical renovations and expansions to complete demolitions and rebuilds, the Lone Star State is exploring how once-hermetic buildings that disrupt the urban environment can look outward to create connections through it.
Michael Lockwood, senior principal at Populous, who is overseeing convention centre projects in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, called the resurgence of convention centre construction in Texas a "perfect storm of conditions" driven by changing state laws and a comeback for in-person business meetings.
Modifications of state legislation have allowed municipalities to tap into additional funding for renovations, expansions and rebuilds for convention centres.
In 2023, Texas Senate Bill 1057 paved the way for municipalities to allocate hotel occupancy tax revenue from a three-mile radius surrounding convention centres for maintenance and new building projects on those sites.
Teeming with business once again, Texas cities are looking for updated convention centre facilities that cater to programmatic flexibility and urban porosity.
Reducing "dark days"
While earlier generations of Texas convention centres – frequently constructed in the latter half of the 20th century – typically accommodated one event at a time, forthcoming designs prioritise the ability to host overlapping events.
Cities want to reduce the number of "dark days" – set up and tear down time immediately preceding and following conventions – by hosting an event in one portion of the facility while turning over other spaces. This allows for rolling rental income for the centres.
Convention centre designers also emphasised the desire for facilities that integrate with their contexts.
No longer a one-sized-fits-all "box and docks" exposition hall, contemporary convention centres aim to provide an "of the place" hospitality experience for visitors that showcases the surrounding city and prompts them to explore and spend money throughout the district.
"Catalysts for economic growth"
"Texas is seeing the value of convention centre design," said Leonardo da Costa, principal at LMN Architects, who is co-leading the design for the Austin Convention Center.
"Convention centre projects tend to be the catalyst for economic growth in the region and development in the city, but they are also catalysts for improvements in the urban area and in the neighbourhood that they are part of."
Over the last several decades, Texas's convention centres have been cyclically expanded into piecemeal behemoths in downtown areas, breaking street grids with blocks-long rooms and creating blockades between neighbourhoods.
"Convention centres need to get out of their own way," Lockwood said. "If they're successful, they get big, and then they become the thing in the city that people can't get around."
Lockwood explained that new designs – like Dallas' Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center that reconfigures exhibition spaces into vertical stacks – can reconnect areas of the city that have been cut off from the larger urban sphere.
"A neighbourhood or a community that has been disconnected for so long – these convention centre projects actually can reintegrate those communities into the city," he said.
Disruptions during building
Dalia Munenzon, assistant professor of urban design, sustainable communities and infrastructure at the University of Houston, confirmed that these urban links are being established in the long run, especially when they are paired with other urban and infrastructural projects in an "ecosystem of connection and investments".
However, the timeline of convention centre projects causes disruptions in the urban environment that can span the better part of a decade.
"The process itself creates some contention and challenges," Munenzon said, citing the closure of key transportation corridors during construction.
The following five projects display how Texas is using convention centres to make improvements to its urban cores:
Dallas
The priciest convention centre project on the books in the Lone Star State is the expansion of Dallas' Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center.
Approved in a 2022 proposition, the $3.7 billion project includes a 365-acre master plan and a 500,000-square-foot (46,450-square metre) expansion designed by global studios Populous and Perkins & Will.
Originally constructed in 1957 and expanded four times before 2002, the existing building spans nearly seven city blocks, dividing Dallas' downtown from the Cedars neighbourhood.
The new design – slated to open in 2029 – will see the demolition of most of the footprint and the reorganisation of the program into a vertical scheme that will accommodate over 10,000 people, depending on seating configuration, with the state's largest ballroom included.
Houston
At $2 billion, the multi-phase renovation of Houston's George R Brown Convention Center is slated to be completed by 2038.
In 2011, Gensler designed a master plan for the 60-block area surrounding the 1987 building. Now, the facility, represented by the Houston First Corporation, is working with Populous on a 700,000-square-foot (65,000-square metre) expansion on the south side of the structure, to open by May of 2028.
The expansion will allow the team to renovate the main building in the future, eventually cutting through the centre of the complex to connect Discovery Green to the rest of the district.
The design is predicated on the relocation of an interstate highway, opening visual and physical circulation routes that are currently blocked by the elevated eight-lane thoroughfare. If the interstate becomes subterranean, the convention centre's back-of-house operations will be reworked in favour of public-facing spaces.
Austin
While architects are undertaking Texas's other major convention centre projects amid day-to-day centre operations, the City of Austin elected to close the 1992 Austin Convention Center in early 2025 to demolish and rebuild the complex.
Slated to open at the end of 2028, the $1.6 billion facility will include 620,000 square feet (57,600 square metres) of rentable space.
To reconnect the urban grid of downtown Austin, the design – a joint venture by LMN Architects and Page – relocates loading docks and 336,000 square feet (31,215 square metres) of exhibition space below ground, recreating the scale of the city blocks and reducing the overall footprint.
The Austin Convention Center may become the first International Living Future Institute-certified carbon-neutral convention centre in the world, emphasising its sustainability goals.
Some of the carbon reduction design elements include a heavy timber structure in the ballroom and the reuse of materials from the demolished building.
Fort Worth
The City of Fort Worth announced the second phase of its $700 million convention centre project in early February 2026.
Having recently poured $95 million into a 76,800-square-foot (7,135-square metre) expansion on the southwest side of the complex, the city is set to replace the existing 1968 arena with a state-of-the-art facility and modernise the portion of the complex that was added in 2003.
All this is slated to be completed by 2030.
Designed by Atlanta-based studio TVS and local architect Bennett Partners, the first phase included a new entrance, terrace, food and beverage facilities, loading docks and a street realignment that will pave the way for a future hotel.
With demolition set for early 2027, the second phase will replace the concrete bowl-shaped arena with a transparent, four-storey structure with a glazed, central tower that balances the Tarrant County Courthouse on the other side of the city's downtown corridor.
San Antonio
Populous is also working with the City of San Antonio to bring a sports and entertainment district, called Project Marvel, to fruition.
A 2016 renovation of the 1967 Henry B González Convention Center – totalling $325 million – opened 12 acres in downtown San Antonio and an opportunity to bring the San Antonio Spurs NBA franchise back to the district with a new sports arena.
In addition to transforming the Alamodome, constructing a new hotel, converting the John H Wood Jr Federal Courthouse into a live music venue and creating a circulation network between public assembly venues in downtown, Project Marvel includes another expansion of the convention centre – bringing the total exhibit space to over 700,000 square feet (65,000 square metres).
Early designs and feasibility studies have been presented to San Antonio City Council, but the city is still working to fund Project Marvel, which is estimated between $1.3 and $4 billion – $900 million of which is slated for the convention centre.
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