Austin and five other Texas cities are racing ahead with plans to expand their convention centers at once, but only in Austin are residents gathering signatures to potentially halt the project at the ballot box.
If this sounds like a familiar storyline, it’s because it is – almost. A similar citizen initiative appeared on the November 2019 ballot, but 54% of voters rejected it.
This time, the stakes are higher: Demolition of the Convention Center is already underway, with major excavation work set to begin in the fall to nearly double the facility’s footprint across six Downtown blocks. Construction of new building foundations will begin in early 2026, according to a Convention Center spokesman, with work expected to be completed in late 2028, and South by Southwest returning to the space the following March.
Despite the construction activity, the folks behind Austin United PAC’s Save the Soul of Austin campaign insist it’s still not a done deal. They’re making a final push to collect at least 20,000 signatures of registered voters, which they’ll then file with the city clerk’s office for verification and, ultimately, placement on the Nov. 4 ballot. Time is short. City Council typically finalizes the local ballot by mid-August.
“Whether we can get it over the top in time to have it on the November ballot or not is still a toss-up,” said Bill Bunch, a lead organizer of the effort. The petition calls for pausing construction for seven years – or until voters explicitly approve it – and redirecting over $100 million of the city’s hotel occupancy tax revenue to other tourism draws like live music, art, film, and eco-tourism. Bunch, executive director of Save Our Springs Alliance, has turned his longtime opposition to expanding the Convention Center into a personal side-crusade.
Critics of the convention center industry argue the business model is outdated and has been declining since the Great Recession – a trend that accelerated during the pandemic.
“Whether we can get it over the top in time to have it on the November ballot or not is still a toss-up.” – SOS’s Bill Bunch, a lead organizer of the effort
Heywood Sanders, professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of the book Convention Center Follies, asserts that cities can no longer attract major events simply by making their convention centers newer and bigger. “What we’ve seen is a persistent, long-term decline,” Sanders says of the industry in “The Magic Hole,” a short film by local filmmaker Steve Mims and produced by Austin Free Press. “The business is not what it used to be.”
Construction costs for the Convention Center expansion is $1.6 billion, largely financed with hotel bed tax dollars. But Bunch points to city officials’ own statements – in response to questions posed by Council Member Marc Duchen – that the project will cost $5.6 billion over 30 years. “That’s just mind-blowing,” Bunch says. “That doesn’t even count the real estate value of the six blocks.”
Similar arguments – and counterarguments – are playing out across Texas as San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, and even El Paso roll the dice on billion-dollar expansions. Dallas is expected to complete its construction in early 2029, while Houston is adding 700,000 square feet of space ahead of hosting the Republican National Convention in 2028.
Critics warn that the competition for landing high-profile conventions is a zero-sum game. “Inevitably one city after another is going to compete itself and the others into the ground and nobody’s going to win,” Sanders says in the film. “And strikingly, what they do is give the space away.”
Meanwhile, the Save the Soul of Austin campaign is in its final stretch of gathering signatures, with several local businesses like Planet K, the Soup Peddler, and the Far Out Lounge hosting petition sheets during their regular business hours.
This article appears in July 11 • 2025.