The setup
Austin's convention center expansion has been under consideration through the past decade and is now moving closer to breaking ground.
The city plans to shutter the more than 30-year-old facility in April following the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals in March. Austin will then be without a downtown exhibition hall for nearly four years during construction ahead of the new, expanded facility's opening in late 2028 or early 2029.
The new center is expected to roughly double the available event space, while lowering most of the building area below ground and reopening Second and Third streets through the property. One previously-proposed portion of the project, a city public-private partnership for a possible high-rise tower on the site, was scrapped this fall due to cost, timing and downtown real estate market considerations.
Details such as a final square footage and facility designs are expected to be unveiled early next year.
What happened
After moving ahead with more than $1 billion in construction contracts over a year ago, City Council formally approved the first major funding update for the project Dec. 12.
Officials signed off on $600 million in bonds to be issued to support the redevelopment in the future, expected to add tens of millions of dollars in debt service over the next few years. Convention Center Director Trisha Tatro said the money will be used for early work such as building demolition and steel procurement through 2025.
The convention center redevelopment is funded entirely through the facility's revenues and civic hotel tax collections, which will back those bonds payments without impacting taxpayers.
Separately, council also established a new hotel tax collection system to help fund portions of the redevelopment. That move to create a new project financing zone in and around downtown—an update to support convention projects that's allowed under a new state law—will see the city pull rising hotel revenues within a 3-mile radius of the exhibition hall over time.
The city is also readying for the project's significant impacts on the nearby residences, hotels and other businesses downtown.
Development team leaders have said hundreds of trucks will be carrying dirt in and out of the site every day during the project's early days. City staff also noted construction noise and truck hauling will be at their highest levels during the initial demolition and excavation phases.
With that in mind, council voted for a special noise ordinance to extend daily construction activity at the convention center. Loud vehicles will now be allowed to operate at the site at late as 10:30 p.m., beyond the city's typical 7 p.m. cutoff.
The city set some mitigation strategies, such as switching truck backup alarms from louder beeping to a "swoosh" sound and planning traffic flows to minimize backing up. Sound barriers could also be installed around the property.
While Tatro said the city plans received some local support so far, she also noted worries about other major infrastructure updates, such as the state's I-35 expansion down the block, and said the city will keep locals updated along the way.
"A common theme of feedback received has been the concern of of traffic impact caused by numerous large construction projects taking place and/or scheduled in the eastern quadrant of downtown," she said in a Dec. 5 memo. "The project team is coordinating with the Transportation and Public Works Department to ensure synchronization of projects influence to transportation and mobilization and to provide residents a one-source of information."
Also of note
One unique feature of the convention center project is its inclusion of several art installations to be worked into the facility's development from the jump.
On Dec. 12, council also voted to work with 10 local artists who'll each contribute pieces around the campus through a $12 million cultural initiative. Artists were selected through the city's Art in Public Places program and will each receive $240,000 for that work.
The chosen artists include: Aaron Michalovic, Alejandra Almuella, Carmen Rangel, Dave McClinton, Dawn Okoro, Deborah Roberts, Diego Miró-Rivera, Jenaro Goode, Rex Hamilton and Tsz Kam. Additionally, five alternates were selected, including Betelhem Makonnen, Ruben Esquivel, Manik Nakra, Anahita Bradberry and Laura Lit.
More information on those artists and the public art program review process is available here.
Looking ahead
Austin's tourism sector is readying for years without its main exhibition space, and the significant loss in hotel stays and revenues anticipated without bigger conventions taking place.
To ease those impacts, council also signed off on the creation of the Austin Tourism and Public Improvement District, or ATPID, to fund tourism support work during the convention center closure and beyond. Dozens of Austin's largest hotels will be funding the district's activities, such as marketing and incentivizing major events to come to town.
"The purpose of the [ATPID] will be to provide special supplemental services for increased marketing and sales initiatives to generate area hotel activity, sales incentives to retain and secure meetings, events, and conventions at the Austin Convention Center and the Palmer Event Center, sales incentives to retain and secure additional citywide, transient and group business at individual district hotels, and research to assess the impact of the ATPID marketing and sales initiatives, all to increase the demand for hotel activity within the district," Tatro said in a memo.
The 10-year program will be overseen by representatives of different-sized hotels located both downtown and elsewhere. City tourism leaders will also be involved in the district.
While the ATIPD is mainly meant to serve tourism efforts, instructions from council member Ryan Alter will see some of its funding used on civic homelessness initiatives.
