Austin Convention Center Redevelopment and Expansion

Austin is knocking down its downtown convention center and building a much bigger one in its place. The $1.2 billion redevelopment, awarded to a Turner Construction and JE Dunn joint venture, roughly doubles the exhibit space and reworks how the building meets the street.

Project Scope
The plan expands the center’s usable space while opening the ground floor to the surrounding downtown blocks, a break from the sealed-box convention halls of the past. The Turner/JE Dunn JV leads construction on one of the largest public building projects in the city’s history, funded through Austin’s hotel occupancy tax rather than general property taxes.

Why It Matters
Convention business is a scale game, and Austin has been losing large events to cities with more contiguous exhibit space. Doubling the footprint is the price of staying in that market. Paying for it with hotel tax, money collected from the visitors the center draws, is how mid-sized cities justify nine-figure civic buildings without touching the residential tax base.

Project Team & Details