Los Angeles put off convention center upgrades for so long that they became extremely expensive. Will the city get more than just a nice 2028 Olympics venue?
Jon Regardie is a veteran Los Angeles journalist who has contributed to dozens of local and national publications, including L.A. Downtown News, where he served as editor, and Los Angeles Magazine, Blueprint, Westside Current and The Eastsider.
On Oct. 1, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and a bevy of city officials, downtown boosters and building trades leaders grabbed golden shovels for a groundbreaking ceremony on a $2.6 billion plan to expand and modernize the Los Angeles Convention Center.
That this day arrived is somewhat miraculous. Local leaders and tourism officials spent decades pining for the overhaul, saying it was necessary to make L.A. competitive on the lucrative convention circuit and to help boost the economy of an ailing downtown. But multiple attempts to upgrade never materialized for political or financial reasons, including a 2018 proposal by the operator of the convention center, Anschutz Entertainment Group, for a $500 million modernization.
Then in September, with the Olympic Games less than three years away, the City Council finally approved a plan despite serious concerns about cost. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s Budget & Finance Committee, was among those loudly warning that L.A. having just patched a $1 billion budget deficit, couldn’t afford the $100 million or so in annual bond payments that will extend to, gulp, the 2050s. “This expansion is unrealistic, unaffordable, and fiscally irresponsible,” she warned her colleagues before the Sept. 19 vote.
So what is L.A. gaining? And is it worth the expense?
Those are questions I’ve spent a lot of time examining. I have been writing about L.A. politics for decades and served as the editor of the Downtown News for 15 years starting in 2004, where we reported on the start-stop attempts to upgrade the convention center, while also detailing the billions in residential, retail, business and other development in downtown.
The underlying problem is that the 867,000-square-foot center is two buildings, the 54-year-old original faded blue structure, and the green 1990s addition. They connect over Pico Boulevard, but the split is a major design flaw — the limited contiguous space prevents L.A. from booking the largest business gatherings because meeting organizers want seamless display areas. Industry experts say the space issue must be fixed if L.A. ever wants to compete against more popular convention centers in Anaheim and San Diego.
It’s clear the failure of past leaders has left the city in a bad situation. The cost concerns are real, but as Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson put it in an op-ed article, “not updating the Convention Center is an equally expensive gamble.” It’s not only about the center hosting judo, wrestling, table tennis and other sports during the 2028 Olympics. The complex started losing bookings because of its size a few years ago. For example, the American Society for Cancer Research cancelled plans to hold its 2025 annual convention in L.A., which cost the city an estimated $36.9 million business sales and $1.7 million in local tax revenues, according to a 2023 L.A. Tourism and Convention Board “situational assessment.” The report detailed a dozen major events that L.A. had booked but that could be lost by not modernizing the property.
Yes, the cost of upgrading today is five times what it was seven years ago, but if the divided-halls problem is not fixed now, the price will keep rising. There’s an understandable hold-your-nose quality to moving forward when that’s the reasoning, but the L.A. convention industry will lose business if it remains saddled with outdated facilities.
The overhaul, which will add 190,000 square feet of contiguous space and a rooftop ballroom, will help by allowing L.A. to nab some of the bigger events that it can’t currently accommodate, and the convention center will enjoy a glistening moment in the Olympic spotlight. The City Tourism Department projects that the project will spur more than $150 million in annual additional visitor spending, and create over 15,000 jobs, which will more than offset the annual bond payment debt. But don’t set hopes too high on the payoff of the upgrade — there’s a ceiling on its potential.
Currently, Los Angeles is a second-tier convention city. Exhibitor magazine ranked L.A. 22nd on its list of 50 Most Popular Convention Centers in 2023. The Tourism and Convention Board assessment that same year reported that L.A. tied for 22nd in convention bookings. You get the picture.
While many hope otherwise, the $2.6 billion makeover will not make Los Angeles competitive with the top tier of convention destinations — Las Vegas, Chicago and Orlando — whose centers boast millions of square feet of exhibit space, surrounded by copious nearby amenities. L.A. isn’t even likely to catch up to San Diego and Anaheim, where local officials supported convention center expansions long ago and have green-lighted projects that provided many more nearby hotel rooms than Los Angeles has (accommodations are a priority for meeting planners).
Even if an upgraded L.A. Convention Center only keeps the city treading water in the rankings, that stream of business gatherings will help keep nearby hotels and restaurants full, which means jobs, people on the streets of downtown and $652 million in city general fund tax revenue that the development is projected to generate over 30 years.
Would it be preferable to have all of this without still paying for 30 more years? Of course. But if you don’t put in the money, then you don’t get the benefits.
