Construction Update: Millions of Square Feet Coming

Michael Hart -- Tradeshow Week, 2/26/2007

The real story behind Tradeshow Week's semiannual Update on New and Expanding Venues may not be so much about what's happened over the last 12 months as it is about what's coming in the next 12.

There were only three grand openings since the last update in August and, while they certainly mean a lot to their communities, the additional space they made available is relatively small. The Virginia Beach Convention Center opened an additional 94,000 square feet of exhibit space last month, the Town & Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego added only 44,000 sq. ft. earlier this month, and the Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, Pa., a little less than 10,000 sq. ft. last fall.

But a plethora of space is set to come online in the coming months. Before the next update in August, 815,000 sq. ft. of new exhibit space will be available and, before the end of 2007, that number will climb to just shy of 2 million sq. ft.

The biggest news of the year will undoubtedly be the expected July opening of McCormick Place West in Chicago, which will add 470,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space to the 2.2 million sq. ft. already available in the facility's other halls. If it were to be considered as a stand-alone project, the new Chicago expansion would be larger than either San Francisco's Moscone Center or Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Following trends seen already in other cities, McCormick Place West will offer 250,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and a 100,000 sq. ft. ballroom, driving the exhibit-to-meeting space ratio way beyond the traditional 80-20 split.

Opening up much more modest buildings, but possibly introducing tradeshow and meeting business to uncharted territories are new buildings in Branson, Mo., and Erie, Pa. Both the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie and the Branson Convention Center will open in August with just under 50,000 sq. ft.