Dallas’ gamble to revamp the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and revitalize a blighted section of the city’s downtown has gone through many iterations since the early ’70s.
In the past three years, City Hall has moved the wheels of bureaucracy to progress critical pieces related to the design and construction of the project. FIFA tapped the convention center to be the international broadcasting center for the 2026 World Cup and host hundreds of journalists from all over the world.
Here’s a timeline of how the convention center has evolved:
The beginning
1957-2002:
The convention center first began as the Memorial Auditorium in 1957. It was later expanded to add event spaces and renamed the Dallas Convention Center in 1973. Then-City Manager George Schrader, in an article published in The Dallas Morning News, hailed the space as a unique community center that could give visitors to the city “a good first impression,” indicating the city’s ability to provide its residents high-quality services.
The facility was expanded again in 1984 to add more meeting rooms and ballrooms. A decade later, a Dallas Area Rapid Transit terminal was added under the facility. At the time, an ment in The News highlighted that the convention center’s growth and expansion did not use taxpayer dollars. Instead, it was reliant on hotel occupancy tax collections.
The last expansion happened in 2002 when the city added more exhibit halls and meeting rooms. The center, however, continued to decline, not just in attendance but also due to a lack of maintenance.
A new convention center hotel
2008-2013:
In 2008, city officials placed their bets on a convention center hotel that could work in tandem with the gargantuan facility and economically boost downtown’s hotel market that was “crippled due to the limited salability of the Dallas Convention Center, which lacks an adjacent headquarters hotel.”
At the time, reporting from The News questioned the study city officials were using to public hotel financing. Those plans came to fruition in 2011 when the Omni hotel opened using $500 million in revenue bonds.
In 2013, the events facility was renamed Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in honor of the former U.S. senator and permanent representative to NATO.
New convention center — again?
2015-2021:
In 2015, city officials began another effort to revive the convention center using the same explanation. A new convention will boost tourism and revitalize the downtown areas, which will be the city’s economic engine. Four years later, the city began a study to reimagine the facility.
Visions for a high-speed rail line in a transportation hub near the convention center, connecting with DART, the streetcar, bike lanes and Amtrak, had also begun to take shape.
In 2019, the city handed Spectra the keys to the convention center, which the Oak View Group later acquired. The same venue management company also took over Fair Park and has been embroiled in controversy.
By 2021, the Dallas City Council coalesced around a plan to tear down the structure, free up acres of space and create a revamped version of the convention center to keep Dallas competitive with other cities. It was the most expensive option of the three presented to the council, which began at $1.9 billion and would shift the convention center by 90 degrees, parallel to Lamar Street.
Officials said the convention center would anchor downtown’s redevelopment, all the way from Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station at the southwest end of the central business district to the Dallas Farmers Market at the southeast end. Attached were plans for a deck park like Klyde Warren Park that would reconnect downtown with southern Dallas after they were separated by a highway.
The City Council then approved the creation of a “project financing zone” within a three-mile radius circling the property to capture hotel occupancy, sales and beverage taxes. A few council raised concerns that the city still had debts related to the Omni hotel on its books.
The general fund does not fund the convention center. All the taxes collected go into a separate enterprise fund. But taxpayers could be on the hook if the city is unable to pay its debts.
Voters approve proposition to bolster city’s convention center financing
2022:
By the end of 2022, a ballot proposition to increase the hotel occupancy taxes by 2% was put to the test. A state law allowed Dallas to use a funding mechanism to collect hotel occupancy taxes and use that to pay its debt.
The city had used it before to construct the American Airlines Center, and it wanted to use 80% of it to fund the new convention center, with the rest put toward aging buildings in Fair Park.
Unbeknownst to the public, city officials were also meeting with the WNBA’s Dallas Wings in an attempt to woo them from Arlington.
Costs go up, plans shift
2023-2024:
In 2023, city officials said cost estimates for the convention center had gone up to $2.8 billion. The city tapped developer Jack Matthews to lead the project. Matthews’ company was behind constructing and renovating the Omni Hotel and apartment complexes on Lamar Street. He secured a six-year $65 million contract.
By the next year, the city said it would reorient the building once again to avoid conflicts with projects helmed by the Texas Department of Transportation, the Union Pacific rail line and a possible high-speed rail line connection to Houston and Fort Worth. But the reorientation pushed the convention center closer to the old Dallas Morning News building, which developer Ray Washburne had bought in 2019 to create an entertainment hub.
Soon, The News reported that Matthews’ company was contemplating a land deal to purchase part of Washburne’s property.
In the next few months in 2024, the City Council approved several developments. In February, council approved $17 million in contracts to revamp the Black Academy of Arts and Letters building as well as the Memorial Auditorium.
The News broke the story in April that the Dallas Wings would be relocating to the refurbished Memorial Auditorium in 2026. The city handed the basketball team a $19 million incentive package and hosted a groundbreaking event months later. Costs had gone up to $3.7 billion, and the city was negotiating a deal with FIFA to host the international broadcast center in Dallas.
In September, Dallas handed out design and construction contracts worth $141.5 million for the main building and $3 million for the nearby Pioneer Park Plaza and cemetery.
That day, the City Council also approved an additional $42 million for two deck parks over Interstate 30, one of which would be attached to the convention center.
The city ended the year on a high, with a potential $15 million investment to ready the convention center for the FIFA World Cup.
Where we are now
The News reported earlier this year that Washburne, who owns the old News building at 508 Young St., had plans to sell it to a data center firm because he had not heard about concrete plans from the city.
The sale to a data firm risks upending plans for the convention center, and city officials began negotiating in closed session to figure out a solution. In the meantime, the city secured a deal with FIFA for the broadcast center and announced the Black Academy of Arts and Letters will move to Fair Park in the near future.
Then last month, The News obtained documents that showed another major player had entered the picture: Hunt Realty.
The Hunts have been against alignments of the high-speed rail that they said could impact a $5 billion redevelopment project near the Reunion Tower. Last month, the developer shared plans with the city that shifted the convention center close to Reunion Tower. Council did not dismiss the plans and said the city was exploring all options. The plans, however, drew criticism from Michael Morris, a key leader at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, who worried the proposal would interfere with major projects like the region’s high-speed rail initiatives.
In April, city officials presented plans that showed the city was sticking to its intention to use Washburne’s property. The City Council later approved paying Washburne nearly $52 million to acquire portions of the building and the surrounding area.