How to Operate a profitable Austin Convention Center
7.8.2025
You may have noticed that Comiccon Austin is happening at the Cedar Park HEB Center. Or maybe you didn’t. That is because the Austin Convention Center is currently closed.
The Austin Convention Center is currently undergoing a a $1.26 billion expansion that is expected to take at least four years. Independent consultants say that the cost of building and maintaining the convention center for the next 30 years will be $5.6 billion. During that time, revenue from convention center bookings are forecasted to be $1.6 billion.
Municipal convention centers across the country are mostly money losers. They took a big hit with the pandemic and were just recovering last year. But this year is another slow one – likely due to economic uncertainty. Still, cities claim convention centers make money buy bringing tourism dollars to the region. Convention centers have also learned to claim a profit by showing hotel tax dollars as revenue. Currently, Austin funds uses 70% of the local hotel tax to fund the convention center.
Project Connect. Where are we going?
2.26.2021
The second week of February 2021, Austin experienced the coldest weather this century. It made me think about why people up north build underground tunnels, and in some cases, heated elevated walkways. Then I thought about how often we need a tunnel for pedestrian travel in downtown Austin – almost never. And that reminded me of Project Connect.
Waterloo to Austin 