City Council has approved two measures related to Convention Center development. One item
advances
the multibillion-dollar reconstruction of the downtown Austin Convention Center, while the other
enables
the construction of a privately financed convention center and resort hotel near the Circuit of the Americas to qualify for state tax rebates.
Council voted to authorize an additional $25 million contract amendment for construction and project management services tied to the downtown center’s ongoing rebuild. The item includes funding for environmental site assessments and other pre-construction services.
Council also approved a land title transfer required under state law for the COTA-area project to be considered a “
qualified project
” eligible for state hotel occupancy and sales tax rebates.
Opponents of the downtown project raised concerns about its financial model, potential opportunity costs, and the lack of a public vote.
The downtown Convention Center, is being demolished and rebuilt as part of a city-led project budgeted at approximately $1.6 billion. The new facility is expected to include about 550,000 square feet of indoor space and 70,000 square feet of outdoor programming space. City staff have said the project will be funded entirely through Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue and dedicated Convention Center income, with no general fund dollars or new taxes involved.
The current timeline anticipates reopening the facility by spring 2029, although the final cost and schedule remain subject to change.
Several speakers at the July 24 meeting called for a pause in project spending and renewed calls for a public vote, with Austin United PAC’s Save the Soul of Austin campaign
circulating
a petition calling for a referendum supporters expect would go before voters next May.
“We’re doing environmental site assessment at this stage when you’ve already been demolishing what we have, and spending money to build a giant new one,” said Bill Bunch, a frequent critic of the downtown Convention Center project. “Environmental assessments you do at the beginning to help you figure out if the project even makes sense environmentally, socially and financially.”
Bunch told the
Austin Monitor
the petition drive has 18,000 signatures of the 20,000 needed to force the referendum. He said supporters plan to collect more than 23,000 signatures by late October to ensure enough valid signatures are submitted.
The second measure approved Thursday involves a procedural step required to facilitate a new convention center and hotel project near the COTA facility in Southeast Austin. Under Texas law, the project must be publicly owned for 10 years in order to qualify for a partial rebate of state-level hotel and sales taxes.
Council’s action authorizes the city to temporarily hold the title to the land and improvements, after which ownership will revert to the private developer, Rita Realty Corp.
City staff emphasized that the project will not involve any local financial commitment or operational responsibility. Rita will fund construction and manage the facility. According to city materials, the conference center component is expected to include roughly 180,000 square feet of usable meeting space, significantly smaller than the downtown facility.
Opponents of the downtown project were generally supportive of the new facility near COTA, arguing that the project would serve the demand for conventions in the area and potentially allowing the six city blocks in the city core to be used for other purposes.
Attorney Michael Whellan, representing Rita Realty, said the new facility would seek to serve smaller organizations and gatherings rather than the larger events planned for the new downtown convention center.
“The meeting space at the Rita Conference Center Convention Center will be three and a half times smaller than the Downtown Convention Center. The actual usable space will be between a 170,000 and a 180,000 square feet. Its target demographic are organizations that are much, much smaller,” he said.
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