San Diego Convention Center gets land to expand

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The San Diego Convention Center won approval Tuesday to acquire six acres of adjacent land, helping it move forward with a long-sought expansion plan.

The Unified Port of San Diego authorized the transfer of the land at a price of $13.5 million, paid over a five-year period.

In recent years, the convention center has had to turn away hundreds of gatherings and events because of a lack of meeting space.

Organizers of Comic-Con, a pop culture celebration and one of San Diego’s largest conventions, have suggested they may relocate after 2012 because the festival has outgrown the 615,700-square-foot convention center.

To keep conventions such as Comic-Con, San Diego officials have proposed a plan to add 200,000 square feet of exhibit space, 100,000 square feet of meeting rooms, 80,000 square feet of multi-purpose ballrooms and 40,000 square feet of bay-front retail space. Convention officials said they hope to complete the expansion by 2015.

‘While there is more work to be done before we can break ground, today’s action is a critical step forward,’ San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said.

-- Hugo Martin