The Los Angeles City Council committee has approved a plan to renovate the downtown Convention Center in time for the 2028 Olympics. Despite acknowledging the ambitious timeline and $1 billion budget, city leaders are determined to move forward with this project.
In a recent meeting, the council’s Trade, Travel and Tourism Committee voted in favor of allocating up to $54.4 million for preconstruction work on the 53-year-old city-owned venue. The proposal will now be presented to the full City Council for final approval.
Despite previous attempts over several years, plans for modernizing this center have not come into fruition until now. At Tuesday’s meeting, business and labor leaders showed their support by highlighting how this project would benefit both economy and job creation while revitalizing downtown Los Angeles.
Under this proposal, construction costs will be covered by public funds but carried out through a private-public partnership between Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which currently operates the convention center,and development firm Plenary Group.
This news marks an important step towards transforming LA’s Convention Center into a state-of-the-art facility that can accommodate large-scale events like Olympic Games without relying on public funding or subsidies from organizations such as Connect CRE.
