Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Officials break ground on $600M renovation project at Las Vegas Convention Center

Convention Center Renovation Ceremonial Groundbreaking

Wade Vandervort

The site where a renovation project will take place is shown at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, May 9, 2023.

Convention Center Renovation Ceremonial Groundbreaking

From left, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President Steve Hill, and the LVCVA Board of Directors, Cedric Crear, Mary Beth Sewald, Michelle Romero, Scott DeAngelo, Jim Gibson, Brian Wursten and Steve Walton shovel dirt during a ceremonial groundbreaking for a renovation project at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, May 9, 2023. Launch slideshow »

Las Vegas has been the premiere trade show destination for nearly three decades, said Steve Hill, the president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and $600 million in renovations to the Las Vegas Convention Center should solidify that standing for the next 30 years.   

Hill and his colleagues broke ground Tuesday on renovations to the facility’s legacy campus, which will include the addition of an outdoor plaza and indoor lobby to the South Hall, as well as a grand lobby between the North and Central Halls. The design and architecture will mirror the construction of the 1.4 million-square-foot West Hall, which opened in 2021.   

The renovations will provide a customer experience that causes trade shows companies to want to return, they promised.

“They love Las Vegas; they keep coming back for Las Vegas,” Hill told reporters after the ceremonial groundbreaking. “We want them to keep coming back for the convention center, too.”

Work will continue through 2025, officials said.

“Nobody does it better than we do in Vegas,” Jim Gibson, chair of both the Clark County Commission and the LVCVA Board of Directors, said during the event. “That’s why growing tourism is important. That’s why we’re all here together today — to celebrate the start of an ambitious renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center legacy campus.”

Other improvements to the 4.6 million-square-foot convention center include an interior concourse between the North and South Halls and a newly designed parking lot with a Vegas Loop station for the nearby Wynn and Encore resorts.

The Vegas Loop, an underground transportation system from Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, has four stations at the convention center.

The renovation — overseen by Miller Project Management Group, with Hunt Construction Group and the Penta Building Group as contractors and more than 600 people on site to build — will also continue work on the ribbon roof of the West Hall, which debuted in 2021 after $1 billion in construction.

The renovation will extend the West Hall’s advanced technology and contemporary design to the rest of the convention center, or its “legacy campus,” Gibson said.

“Its designs and amenities were a game changer,” he said of the West Hall. “And it wasn’t just a game changer for Las Vegas, but for the entire meeting and convention industry.

Spending from the five million people who attended conventions in Las Vegas in 2022 supported an estimated 38,000 jobs, $2.1 billion in wages and $7.5 billion in economic impact, Gibson said. It is essential that Las Vegas continues to evolve and responsibly grow tourism, he said.

“Meetings and conventions matter to us,” he said. “No other destination has invested in hosting the trade show industry more than Las Vegas.”

The LVCVA will do everything it can to minimize disruption for conventions over the nearly three-year period of construction, Hill said, and he appreciates the flexibility of trade show operators. The convention center hasn’t lost a show because of renovation, he told the Las Vegas Sun.

“Investing in the future really does outweigh the inconvenience and our customers know that,” he said. “They have asked us to do this.”

The renovation has been two decades in the making, Hill said during the event, and has experienced delays due to both the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a relief to finally start the project, he told the Sun.

“This is an opportunity to do something real about what we always claimed — we’re the best,” Gibson said after the event. “Well we need the best facilities if we’re really the best.”