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Despite basketball and hockey leaving for the suburbs along with termination of the Eisenhower Civic Center project, desire for significant downtown convention space lived on. The home rule era that began in 1974 eased many of the encumbrances to pull off such a project. In 1978, a special hotel tax instituted by the D.C. City Council funded a convention center project. This is the program from the groundbreaking ceremony on April 23, 1980.
In 1983, the Washington Convention Center opened for business at 10th Street and H Street and New York Avenue as the fourth largest convention facility in the nation with over 800,000 square feet of exhibition space. Yet by 1997, the Convention Center would fall in the rankings to be only the 30th largest facility in the country. In 1998, groundbreaking ceremonies are held for the new Washington Convention Center six blocks away on the other side of Mount Vernon Square at M Street and 9th Street. The new Convention Center opened for business in 2003, considered to be one of the top convention facilities in the country. The old Convention Center was imploded on December 20, 2004 in an elaborate ceremony with Mayor Anthony Williams performing the ceremonial detonation, ending the twenty-one year span of the Convention Center. The old Convention Center is often credited with leading the revitalization of downtown Washington, a process that eventually led the return of hockey and basketball from the suburbs back to the city.
Officials from the new Convention Center state their facility hosts nearly one million visitors while generating close to $500 million in gross income to the District. |
