San Jose Might Expand to Compete
-- Tradeshow Week, 5/19/2008
In order to keep up with the competition, the San Jose (Calif.) McEnery Convention Center might get bigger.
San Jose hired LMN Architects to help the San Jose Convention & Visitors Bureau, the city and Team San Jose, a public-private partnership that runs the convention center, determine if an expansion and renovation could be feasible for McEnery, said Dan Fenton, CEO of the San Jose CVB and Team San Jose.
The city allocated $4.5 million for the process, which might take until the end of the year, Fenton said. It's too early to announce how much space could be added, the cost of the project or a construction time line, he added.
Some of the bigger shows at McEnery left the city for San Francisco's newer and bigger Moscone West, including the RSA Conference and the Game Developers Conference. Moscone West has 296,000 square feet of exhibit space compared with San Jose's 223,000 sq. ft.
Fenton said with the possible construction, San Jose could look at events that left the city, but that isn't the main goal.
“We think that it would give us the opportunity to host multiple events at one time,” he added.
