The Great Canadian Convention Centre Thread!
 

Since so many convention centres across the country have recently undergone, are undergoing, or will undergo expansions, I thought this might be a good idea for a thread.

Here is the current progress of the Winnipeg Convention Centre courtesy of Cyro...

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_r...y=80&size=650x



Also, the Nova Centre in Halifax will include a major convention space for Atlantic Canada...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/90bc82b01...gsso1_1280.jpg
Ziobrop - http://fillingtheholehfx.tumblr.com/
http://thechronicleherald.ca/sites/d...ntionCen_4.jpg




And of course, the St. John's Convention Centre expansion!

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2854/...33c104fd_z.jpg
http://destinationstjohns.com/wp-con...r-1024x546.jpg
http://www.sjcc.ca

Edmonton Expo Centre at Northlands, the massive expansion was completed in 2009

http://www.rvcity.ab.ca/Portals/37/i...RE%20PHOTO.jpg

Very nice facility for tradeshows and conventions and such. I coordinated a whole bunch of mechanical sub-trade work on this project.

Winnipeg and Halifax's look really good, even St. John's one looks ok.
I love Ottawa's new one (completed in 2011)! Such nice modern architecture and creates such contrast with the Parliament, Canal and Chateau Laurier styles.

http://www.smaku.com/blog/wp-content...8/DSC_6883.jpg
http://actionplan.gc.ca/sites/defaul...?itok=KFe6X9QK

Yeah, Ottawa's and Vancouver's are my two favorites in the country. Though, Winnipeg might join them!

Meanwhile torontos convention centre is a piece of crap from the 1970's.. Oxford wants to change that, but it still seems rather far off.

''Montreal finished ahead of several major cities, including Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires, as well as Toronto and Vancouver. ''
http://theplanner.ca/2013/08/28/mont...-for-2nd-year/

http://images.lpcdn.ca/641x427/20111...moder-plus.jpg
http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/aff...gressistes.php

I love the Ottawa centre.

Windsor basically gave it's old convention centre to St. Claire College for its downtown campus, when Caesars built it's new hotel tower and 100,000 sf state of the art convention centre. It has worked out well for everyone!

Here's a web page showing 19 of the main Canadian Convention Centres. Gives you a picture, general description, square footage, adjacent hotel rooms, theatre space, travel time to airport and parking spots...

Definitely worth a look!

http://www.conventioncentrescanada.c...es/ottawa.html

Ottawa's is beautiful. That render of Halifax's looks nice as well.

I'm not a fan of our expansion. It's more than just the personal disappointment that, yet again, we are underestimating ourselves and building something that is too small for our existing needs, let alone our growing needs (something of a habit we have; the airport, just recently upgraded, is being significantly expanded now as well). This should have been a much larger expansion with a hotel tower on top.

But my real concern is the design. To me, the design isn't great. It looks like an outlet mall. Can't you just see DANIER LEATHER and STAPLES on those orange and blue entrance features?

http://destinationstjohns.com/wp-con...r-1024x546.jpg

Hopefully the cladding is something interesting... but I think this is just going to be another average building in the Downtown West End.

It's still a step up from what was there before, though... a handful of dilapidated rowhouses, a couple of nice businesses, and a gravel surface parking lot.

Same view as the above render:

http://i62.tinypic.com/eb6fjr.jpg

Backside view (which will now be completely filled in by the expansion):

http://i61.tinypic.com/2db022s.jpg

Ya, it kind of looks by a mall, but at least it's a very good looking mall.

I understand you're frustration with building smaller than your needs. Ottawa has a rich history of doing the same. The Convention Centre is one of those examples at 192,000 square feet, smaller than Québec City's (232,000) and Winnipeg's (264,000) post expansion size.

Another example is the Confederation Line; to save on construction costs, the subway platforms were shortened twice from 180 meters to 150 meters and finally to 120 meters.

I checked it and apparently according to the the website Regina has the 3rd biggest convention centre in canada (489k) i'm sorry to say this but can someone show me the actual number because I don't think Regina could sustain such a big convention centre.

120 meters is still quite long for a platform, using 90 second frequencies (given that it is grade seperated this is possible) you are looking at a similar capacity to Toronto's subway today. Just be happy ottawa didn't go the way of the Canada line and build 40 meter platforms.

Some newer renderings of Halifax's:

http://www.halifaxconventioncentre.c...endering-1.jpg
Source

http://www.halifaxconventioncentre.c...endering-2.jpg
Source

It's only about 120,000 square feet, so if Regina's is pushing 500,000.. that seems kind of excessive.

Palais des Congres is gorgeous. The colour adds quite a bit of flair to that area; it's definitely quite Montreal-esque.

The current World Trade and Convention Centre in all its 1980s glory:

http://www.erappa.org/NJAPPA/images/...1287395872.jpg
Source

The Cunard Centre functions as a secondary convention centre, in a converted warehouse next to Pier 21. The building itself is nothing fancy but it offers interesting views of the industrial waterfront:

http://www.rcr.ca/img/catering/photo...terior-day.jpg
Source

http://www.rcr.ca/img/catering/photo...wines-show.jpg
Source

http://www.rcr.ca/img/catering/photo...ip-pier-22.jpg
Source

The north building was likely sold to Oxford because of the Allstream Centre addition to the Direct Energy Centre. South building is original. Where else will you find a subterranean convention centre.

Calgary needs to double/triple the size of it's convention facilities!

waste of money to enlarge the center if there aren't many conventions bookings that need the size. Large convention centres have been found to be a big waste of space and money for most cities, particularly in the states.

I quite like the MTCC's south building as well. Just bury the damn thing and you have benefit of it without it occupying an enormous amount of space. It is also very convenient to reach.