Moscone Center Expansion on Time and Budget

The last major beam on the Moscone Center expansion being put in place. Photo courtesy of San Fransisco Travel.

The $551 million expansion of San Francisco’s Moscone Center reached a major milestone this week when the last major beam of steel was put in place on the addition, the construction of which began in November 2014.

“I am proud to say that the project is on time and on budget, and we are looking forward to the grand opening ribbon-cutting, scheduled for January 3, 2019,” said Joe d’Alessandro, president and CEO of the San Francisco Travel Association. “San Francisco welcomes more than 25 million visitors each year, and over 20 percent of those visitors pass through Moscone Center. It is important that San Francisco stay competitive with expanded and upgraded convention facilities. This project has achieved that.”

The expansion project, which is designed to be LEED Platinum Certified, will add more than 157,000 gross square feet of flexible meeting space to Moscone North and South on Howard Street, between Third and Fourth streets. The addition creates more than 504,000 gross square feet that can be used as contiguous exhibition space or flexible meeting space. There will be the ability to have more than 80 meeting rooms.

Approximately 40 percent of the expansion opening in September 2017 and has been in active use. San Frisco Travel, the destination marketing organization, is now actively booking the entire space for 2019 and beyond.

Expansion Highlights

The expansion is a partnership between the San Francisco Tourism Improvement District Management Corporation (SFTIDMC) and the City & County of San Francisco.  Highlights of the addition include:

• Expanded lobbies in Moscone’s North and South buildings totaling approximately 60,000 square feet;
• two new floors of column-free space that include a 50,000-square-foot ballroom;
• two new pedestrian bridges across Howard Street, the East Bridge and West Bridge;
• the largest rooftop solar array on a building in San Francisco, generating up to 19.4 percent of the building’s energy needs;
• on-site water treatment plant;
• expanded kitchen;
• expanded freight access for move-in, move-out;
• and built-in show offices.