Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center
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The Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center is located in downtown San Antonio along the banks of the San Antonio River Walk.
The facility is the central component of the city’s successful convention industry. The center, named for the late US congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, hosts more than 300 events each year with over 750,000 convention delegates from around the world.
The original convention center was built as part of HemisFair '68 by a joint venture of two general contractors Darragh & Lyda Inc. of San Antonio, Texas and H. A. Lott Inc. of Houston, Texas , but has been significantly altered and expanded since then. Today it is a 1.3 million square feet state-of-the-art facility with 203,000 sq ft (18,900 m²). of meeting space, 3 ballrooms, 4 contiguous exhibit halls over 440,000 sq ft (41,000 m²). and the adjacent 2,500 seat Lila Cockrell Theatre, a performing arts venue, which is part of the original construction.
In spite of San Antonio's robust convention and leisure visitor industry (as well as some of the strongest hotel occupancy rates in the US), there have been several proposals since 1988 to build a convention center hotel, none of which has succeeded. However, construction of a new 1000-room convention center hotel and condominium tower is finally underway. The Grand Hyatt San Antonio, designed by the renowned architecture firm Arquitectonica, is scheduled to open in 2008, some 20 years after the initial proposal.
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