With L.A. focused on fire recovery, Convention Center expansion is now in doubt
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Faced with the enormous task of rebuilding after the Palisades fire, Los Angeles city officials can no longer oversee a major expansion of the downtown Convention Center in time for the 2028 Olympic Games, city officials said this week.
The push to complete the project by May 2028 would require a huge amount of attention from top managers at the Bureau of Engineering, Department of Building and Safety and other agencies, said City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, the city’s top budget analyst.
That’s no longer feasible after the Jan. 7 fire, which caused an estimated $350 million in damage to street lights, recreation centers, a library and other city infrastructure — all of which need to be rebuilt, he said.
Before the fires, “we would have cut it extremely close” to complete the Convention Center expansion by 2028, Szabo said in an interview. “After the fires, it became impossible.”
Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council have the ultimate authority to decide whether to go forward with the expansion of the Convention Center, which is in line to host Olympic events such as table tennis and fencing. The project’s next steps are scheduled for discussion on Tuesday by the council’s economic development committee.
The initial cost estimate, issued this week, included damaged or destroyed streetlights, recreation centers, sanitation systems and the Pacific Palisades library.
Szabo and Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who together co-authored a three-page memo summing up the situation, also plan to give city leaders a series of options for upgrading the facility — short-term and long-term — next month.
“A pause in the project is warranted,” the memo states, “to reevaluate options and opportunities for expanding the LACC.”
Szabo said he and other analysts are looking at a number of possible strategies, including starting construction, pausing during the Olympics and then resuming once the events are over. Another possibility, he said, would be to kill the project altogether.
A representative for Bass didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The City Council voted last year to spend up to $54 million on design, engineering and other pre-construction work for the Convention Center expansion, which would add 190,000 square feet of exhibit hall space, 55,000 square feet of meeting room space and 95,000 square feet of multipurpose space. Most of the $54 million has already been spent, Tso said in an email.
With Olympic events planned at the Convention Center, city leaders want to use the Games as an impetus for construction that could ultimately cost billions.
The May 2028 completion date was established to ensure that the Convention Center would be available for use as a venue during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, the facility doesn’t need to be expanded for it to be used for competitions.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who cast the lone vote against spending the $54 million last year, said she does not want to continue putting “good money after bad.” In an interview Monday, she said she was not surprised to hear that the expansion cannot be completed by the 2028 deadline.
“The outcome is actually as I predicted,” she said. “I said, ‘We’re going to go through this process, spend money and then say we can’t do it in time.’”
The cost of the Convention Center project is expected to exceed $1.4 billion. In their memo, Szabo and Tso said they have not yet negotiated a price for the city’s planned contract with APCLA, also known as AEG Plenary Conventions Los Angeles, the joint venture that would oversee the construction. Other contract terms, such as the construction schedule, also have not been finalized.
City leaders have long argued that the Convention Center — which is made up of two structures, the South Hall and the West Hall — does not have enough contiguous space to attract the top-tier conventions that fill nearby hotels and generate huge amounts of tax revenue.
Nella McOsker, president of the downtown business group Central City Assn., said she believes the expansion can still happen before the Olympics.
“We’re talking thousands of jobs, good-paying union jobs, which Angelenos are eager for,” she said. “We’re very open to phases [of construction], but still think the window is there for investing in this project.”
The city’s political leaders paused plans for a Convention Center makeover in 2020, after the onset of the pandemic. If the city stalls again, McOsker said, the project will be more expensive and take even longer.
“I think that now is not the time to shut the door,” she said.
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