Council considers timeline, partnerships ahead of vote on $1.2B contracts for convention center

City Council appears ready to move ahead with two major contracts that will officially kick off the process of demolishing and reconstructing the Austin Convention Center. On Thursday, contracts totaling nearly $1.27 billion could confirm LMN/Page as the design and engineering firms for the project, while JE Dunn/Turner would be the construction managers for the four-year span beginning in 2025.

Council heard the latest details of the expansion at Tuesday’s work session, with convention center staff explaining how the substantial increase in meeting and exhibit space is projected to bring far more events and conventions to the city. The expansion, which was originally expected to include parcels to the west of the current footprint, will see the loading docks and much exhibit space located underground. Plans call for Second and Third streets to be be opened to pedestrians and possibly vehicle traffic, with additional features including a private development portion using increased building height.

Funding for the expansion is coming from the city’s portion of Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue, with convention center staff saying none of the revenue from the public/private partnership component of the project is needed to cover the costs of the project.

Council members’ questions involved the four-year timeline during which the center will be completely closed – instead of using a phased approach that would have extended the construction over seven or eight years.

“Financially, it would have cost significantly more just because you would need to build some retaining walls in between the two (sections),” said Katy Zamesnik, acting assistant director of the convention center. “As we’re trying to operate the convention center on one side and then also build the exhibit halls underground the way that the phasing worked as well, we would be without a kitchen, which is pretty critical for convention center operations. And our clients don’t really want to bring their attendees to a construction site as they’re going through.”

Mayor Kirk Watson said while the total demolition and reconstruction may seem overwhelming, he recalled the city handling the simultaneous late-’90s expansion of the convention center and construction of the downtown Hilton Austin hotel, which was built specifically to handle convention guest business.

“It was said, ‘let’s build a convention center hotel,'” he said. “And the response was, ‘whoa, whoa, you can’t do that unless you double the size of the convention center.’ OK, how about we do them both at the same time? And that’s what happened.”

The 300 employees from the convention center will be reassigned to open positions within the city while construction takes place, with plans to bring them back as convention center employees prior to the reopening.

Trisha Tatro, director of the convention center, said work is progressing on creating a request for proposals for the public/private partnership project on the site expected in the coming months, with the goal of having that project following roughly the same timeline for opening as the larger convention center. Tatro said there will also be an RFP soon to hire a communications firm to handle all messaging and information related to the project, with plans to hire that firm by January.

Council Member Alison Alter said she and others will need to see more detailed financial information on the project as the design and initial construction planning moves forward, along with an explanation of how the revenue generated by the public/private partnership will flow back to the city.

“We in the public need to understand sort of how many other buckets of costs beyond these two (contracts) we’re talking about in terms of the magnitude, even if you don’t have the specific numbers you can share,” she said. “We’re already over a billion dollars with what we’re authorizing here, and that’s assuming that the (construction manager at risk) contract is actually for building out the convention center.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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