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George R. Brown Convention Center | |
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Address | 1001 Avenida de las Americas |
Location | Houston, Texas |
Coordinates | 29°45′8″N 95°21′28″W / 29.75222°N 95.35778°W |
Owner | City of Houston |
Operator | Houston First Corporation |
Opened | September 26, 1987 |
Renovated | July 28, 2001 (completed December 3, 2003) and November 2014 (completed late 2016) |
Enclosed space | |
• Total space | 1,900,000 sq ft (180,000 m2) |
Parking | 4000 spaces[1] |
Public transit access | Convention District station |
Website | |
www |
The George R. Brown Convention Center (GRB), opened on September 26, 1987,[2] is located on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.
The center was named for internationally recognized entrepreneur, engineer, civic leader, philanthropist and Houstonian George R. Brown (1898–1983). George and his brother, Herman, turned Brown & Root into the world's largest construction and engineering company. Later, he and investors founded Texas Eastern Transmission Company, which donated six of the 11 blocks required to build the GRB.[3] The center is owned by the city of Houston and managed by the Houston First Corporation. The facility was completed with a price tag of $104.9 million (equivalent to $241 million in 2023[4]), requiring 30 months and more than 1,200 workers. The 100-foot-high (30 m) 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.