San Diego Convention Center

San Diego Convention Center(San Diego Convention Center) is the principal convention center in San Diego, California. It is located in the Marina District of downtown San Diego, near the Kerosene Lamp District, at 111 Westport Avenue. The center is operated by the San Diego Convention Center Corporation, a nonprofit public benefit corporation established by San Diego. The corporation also operates the San Diego Civic Theatre through its subsidiary San Diego Theatre Company. The convention center offers 615,700 square feet (57,200 square meters) of exhibition space. As of 2009, it is the 24th largest conference center in North America. It was designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson. The facility has a capacity of 125,000 people.

The center’s most distinctive feature is the Sail Pavilion, a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) exhibition and special events space. The Sail Pavilion’s roof is made of unique Teflon-coated fiberglass “sails,” designed to reflect San Diego’s maritime history and promote the center’s proximity to the San Diego coast. The pavilion was originally built as an outdoor facility under a roof. However, the center struggled to convince potential users to book outdoor facilities, so in 2000, the pavilion area was enclosed in glass, significantly increasing the center’s usable floor space. Since December 2016, the Sail Hall has been undergoing a period of renovation. The Sail Pavilion’s renovation was completed in late February 2018, with the addition of a programmable LED lighting system. Another special feature of the conference center is its inclined elevator, which rises along a large exterior staircase.