The Dallas Convention Center, originally the Dallas Memorial Auditorium, is a meeting hall, event/convention center and civic center in the Convention Center District of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA). It was designed by Larry Oltmanns who was a Design Partner with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill at the time.
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The Dallas Memorial Auditorium was originally constructed in 1957 near the intersection of Canton and Akard Streets. In the 1970s, the center was expanded and renamed the Dallas Convention Center; the expansion was designed by local architects Omniplan. The center was expanded again in 1984 and once more in 1994,[1] when Dallas Area Rapid Transit constructed the Convention Center Station underneath the west-wing of the facility, connecting it to the Red and Blue light rail lines. The most-recent addition to the facility was completed in 2002.[1] Together with Reunion Arena, it was an emergency shelter for thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees in September 2005.
While on a five city tour in the final week of 1976, Elvis Presley performed here on December 28 in an amazing live show that was recorded and later released on the Follow That Dream collectors label titled "Showtime!"
In October 1978, Queen played at the Convention center during their US tour, and the music video for "Fat Bottomed Girls" was filmed at the center.[2]
The center is over 2,000,000 square feet (190,000 m2) in size and contains over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) of exhibit space. The largest contiguous exhibit-space in the structure is 726,726 square feet (67,515 m2). A 203,000-square-foot (18,900 m2) column-free exhibit hall in the center is the largest of its kind in the United States.[3]
The east side of the structure contains the original element of the Dallas Memorial Auditorium, a 9,816-seat arena. The complex also houses a 1,740-person theater, 105 meeting rooms, and 2 gigantic ballrooms. In terms of accessibility, the world's largest heliport/vertiport sits atop the structure and 75 truck berths line its docks.[3]
In May 2009, voters approved construction of the Omni Dallas Convention Center Hotel, a 1,000 room hotel that will be attached to the Convention Center upon opening in late 2011.