‘high Risk Optimism’: La Starts Convention Center Renovation With Olympics Clock Ticking

When Los Angeles officials break ground today on a controversial, $2.6 billion renovation of the city’s convention center, they’ll be putting a lot on the line for the 2028 Olympics.

If the convention center isn’t ready in time, the city will have to relocate events like fencing, wrestling and table tennis. And more than that, it’s a reputational risk for the city and for the Democratic politicians, like Mayor Karen Bass, who approved it.

“Optimism and faith is good, right? But this is a very high-risk optimism,” Mike Bonin, a former councilmember who now directs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, told Playbook. “If we have to move events, that's egg on the face of the city. That's an embarrassment.”

Multiple city officials have raised red flags. In March, the city administrative officer and the chief legislative analyst said in a letter to the members of an economic committee that getting the project done before the Olympics was not feasible. The city controller also warned that Los Angeles will not generate revenue from the convention center for 30 years.

When the City Council took a vote on the project’s final approval in September, dissenting Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky called the expansion unrealistic, unaffordable and irresponsible.

“Over the next 910 days, crews would have to work six days a week, every week, with only 20 days of float days and several more for bad weather and other contingencies,” she said. “That's approximately five weeks of slack in a 130 week construction schedule. Even the smallest disruption, supply chain delays, weather, labor shortages, or the city's own approval process– which we all know what that is — will push us off schedule.”

She and a city finance committee recommended a much cheaper alternative plan days before that would include making repairs and upgrades that would “bring the convention center into the 21st century.”

But city officials have been trying to approve a plan to upgrade the convention center for at least a decade, and the council overwhelmingly approved the project, on an 11-2 vote. Beyond the Olympics, they see construction jobs and the opportunity to draw more large events downtown.

“I think finally the city reached a point where, you know, we simply just need to expand it and make it state of the art, 21st century, make it the future of what Los Angeles should be,” said Assemblymember Mark González, who represents the downtown.

Clara Karger, Bass’ press secretary, said the mayor’s office “will work in partnership with the City Council to implement cost-saving measures, efficiency improvements, and streamlined approvals to ensure on time completion.”

The project spurred a rare alliance between business and labor interests. When Bass approved the final plans last week, she said the project “is more than just a building, it is about revitalizing the heart of our city and bringing good-paying jobs and tourism straight to downtown.”

And as the project’s backers point out, there is a risk to Los Angeles in not renovating the facility.

“When you're going to attract the globe to Los Angeles, and they come and see the convention center in its current form versus what we are excited to be able to show them, suddenly you're changing the reputational future of being able to bring people back for a world-class convention,” said Nella McOsker, the president of the Central City Association of Los Angeles, a backer of the project.

Or as Bonin put it, “It has been an article of faith in sort of the political culture of Los Angeles that one of the impediments to our being more competitive in tourism is our convention center sucks.”

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