The George R. Brown Convention Center, opened on September 26, 1987,[2] is located on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.The 100-foot (30 m) high red-white-and-blue building replaced the obsolete Albert Thomas Convention Center, which was later redeveloped into the Bayou Place entertainment complex in the downtown Houston Theater District. It is the first convention center in the world to have a permanent Bitcoin ATM.The convention center is served by METRORail light rail service at Convention District station.
A renovation project 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, which is connected to the convention center via two skywalks. The hotel and convention center are not connected to the Houston downtown tunnel system. The project expanded the center from 1,150,000 square feet (107,000 m2) 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 (41,950 m2) 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 November 2003, a few months before Super Bowl XXXVIII.
There is also a 3,600-seat General Assembly Theater which can be used for concerts, Broadway shows, conferences, meetings and other events, while Exhibit Hall B3 can be converted into a 6,500-seat indoor arena for concerts and sports using telescopic seating. In November 2014 the ground was broken yet again, this time in preparation for Super Bowl LI.