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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
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Stephen Montoya
The Texas heat didn’t dampen the spirits of the attendees at the August 8 topping out ceremony held in honor of phase one of the Fort Worth Convention Center expansion project. Several city officials were in attendance to sign the final steel beam that was placed in the vertical framework of the building. Besides their John Hancock’s this beam was adorned with a Fort Worth flag, the Texas state flag, and the American flag in the center. Adding to tradition and good luck, a fir tree was placed on top of the beam along with the flags.
As this final structural piece was carefully swung into place via the top of where a grand southeast lightbox atrium entrance will be, onlookers applauded.
This $95 million expansion project, which is being done in two phases, is being overseen by AECOM Hunt, Byrne Construction Services, and EJ Smith Construction, who entered into a contract with the city last December.
Phase one of this expansion is estimated to be complete in 2026 and includes the aforementioned grand southeast lightbox atrium entrance, east-facing terrace, state-of-the-art catering kitchen, additional loading docks, plus the straightening of Commerce Street for a future hotel site. According to a city release, phase two of this project, which is estimated to cost $606 million, is still in the planning stages, with construction anticipated to be complete by early 2030.

City of Fort Worth
“The cranes that you see here today aren't just for the convention center,” councilmember Elizabeth Beck said at the ceremony. “We have explosive growth throughout this quadrant of downtown and it will connect within [the] near Southside, and it's conveniently located right near a transit hub. So, we will be engaging with Trinity Metro as well to make sure that we make it as easy as possible for visitors to get here to our convention and enjoy our great city.”
Beck said projects like this one are very important to her because they bring in tourism dollars, which she refers to as “other people’s money.”
“My favorite type of money to spend at the city is other people's money, because the more tourism dollars that we bring into the city, the less we have to rely on property taxes to make sure we fund all of the great amenities that you have here in the City of Fort Worth,” Beck said.
Since 1968, the Fort Worth Convention Center (formerly the Tarrant County Convention Center) has hosted some of the biggest events and names in entertainment, attracting fans and supporters from various areas. Acts like Ike and Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, and even Pink Floyd all played this venue at one time, to large crowds.
Even former president Donald J. Trump stopped by the Convention Center on February 26, 2016 for a rally being held for his presidential bid. Outside of hosting celebrities and concerts, the Convention Center has hosted thousands of major national and international events in the realm of sports, trade shows, and naturally conventions.

City of Fort Worth
The Fort Worth Convention Center was proposed by Tarrant County officials in 1961 as an answer to a similar event center our neighbors to the east built in 1957 — the Dallas Convention Center.
The City of Fort Worth, who owns and operates the Convention Center, expanded the original structure significantly in 2003. Currently, the Convention Center has almost 400,000 square feet of total meeting space.
Now, with the marking of phase one of yet another expansion to this structure, city officials look toward the future of this project with optimism, since it signifies growth.
“Cities in America often surround around whether that city is growing and thriving, whether people want to visit there, interact with the city, live there, raise their families, and how fortunate I am to come back to the city of Fort Worth,” mayor Mattie Parker said.
Ever since her first day in office, Parker says one of the biggest problems the city council has grappled with is Fort Worth’s growth. With a limited amount of taxpayer funds to try and stretch out, Parker says this issue is a constant.
“It was really over 10 years ago that the city management knew that a convention center expansion was needed,” she said. “The leadership with Visit Fort Worth and Bob Jameson and their team started thinking about how we will get to this place today to have a topping out ceremony. How do we convince voters to trust us with their money and HOT [Hotel Occupancy Tax] tax dollars to build out phase two? And it really is about this amazing city that all of us have grown to love and appreciate that is different than other cities in the country.”
Editor's Note: (This article has been updated to reflect the accurate amount of the cost of phase one of the Convention Center expansion.)