LA selects design firm to make over convention center

The Los Angeles City Council selected HMC Architects and Populous on Tuesday to design the expansion of the aging downtown convention center. During the next three months, the firms will negotiate a contract with the city.

Updating the convention center has been such a high priority for city leaders because L.A. has fallen behind even much smaller cities in the competition for who gets to host major conventions.

When L.A.’s convention center opened in 1971, conferences came to L.A. because it was L.A., not for the meeting rooms. But over the years, the city has fallen behind as other locations have opened bigger, spiffier facilities, said Los Angeles Convention Center Director Bud Ovrom, who is also executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Convention and Tourism Development.

“The convention business has become a lot more competitive," Ovrom said. "There are wonderful venues just on the West Coast.”

Ovrom said Los Angeles attracts just 22 major conventions a year, compared to 52 in San Francisco and 75 in San Diego.

The city still hasn’t figured out how it’s going to pay for a new facility, but even if it does, Ovrom said there’s another problem.

“As bad as our situation with a tired convention center is, our situation is actually worse with hotel rooms,” Ovrom said. 

San Francisco has about 20,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of its convention center and Anaheim has about 10,000, compared to about 4,000 in L.A., according to Ovrom.

Mayor Eric Garcetti has set a goal of doubling hotel-room availability by 2020, which Ovrom said the city is well on its way toward achieving.

The Wilshire Grand, scheduled to open in 2017, will add 900 rooms. In May, AEG announced a 755-room expansion of its JW Marriott property at L.A. Live. 

The convention center itself will also include a 1,000-room hotel, on land where AEG was hoping to build an NFL stadium.