Dallas is tearing down its convention center to build a bigger one. The city broke ground in late June on a $3 billion rebuild of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, a 2.5 million-square-foot project that anchors a new downtown district and aims to nearly double the city’s convention business.
Project Scope
New exhibit halls go up first, and the existing center comes down later to make room for the wider Convention Center District master-planned by architecture firm TVS. The plan reconnects the street grid the old center walled off, with room for hotels, restaurants, retail, and public space alongside the halls. Dallas voters approved the funding in November. The work is expected to wrap in 2029.
Why It Matters
Convention centers are a civic bet: cities spend big public money on them to pull conventions, hotel nights, and downtown spending they wouldn’t otherwise capture. The trend now is to stop building isolated boxes and instead knit the center into a walkable district, which is exactly what Dallas is after by reopening the street grid and layering in mixed use. Whether the economics pencil depends on convention demand years out, but the scale of the commitment says Dallas intends to compete with the biggest host cities in the country.
Project Team & Details
| Owner / Client | City of Dallas |
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| Architect | TVS |
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| Status | Under Construction |
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| Funding Source | Public (Municipal) |
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