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George R. Brown Convention Center




The first convention held in the George R. Brown Convention Center began on October 11 , 1987 for the American Society Of Travel Agents . Renovations began on July 28 , 2001 to expand the convention center and build an adjacent 1,200 room convention headquarters hotel at a cost of $165 million and requiring 27 months of construction. The adjacent hotel is the Hilton Americas-Houston and is connected to the convention center via skywalks. The project expanded the center from 1,150,000 square feet to 1,800,000 square feet (107,000 to 167,000 m²). Three exhibit halls were added to increase exhibition space from 451,500 square feet to 853,500 square feet (42,000 to 79,000 m²) and sixty-two meeting rooms were added for a total of 105. Completion of the project concluded in September 2003 a few months before Super Bowl XXXVIII . At the same time, METRORail was completed on schedule, and what is deemed a revived Downtown Houston has opened doors to future conventions (in Summer 2004, the Texas Democratic Convention was held within the GRB).

After Hurricane Katrina , approximately 7,000 Refugee s went to the convention center, due to the Astrodome being at its full capacity.


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