Convention Center Gets Face Lifting

Until this year, the first impression created by the Anaheim Convention Center could be captured in one word: orange.

Not the muted orange fashionable in today’s Southwestern decor, but pumpkin orange, tangerine orange, screaming bright orange. To maximize Anaheim’s identification with Orange County, the interior designers of the city-owned building decided to go all out, with orange walls, orange carpeting, orange chairs and orange signs.

The orange, accented by dark brown and an occasional splash of blue, wore well through the psychedelic era but held little charm in the yuppie-influenced 1980s.

“We were starting to get some complaints from clients,” acknowledges Ted Lewis, the center’s operations manager.

Anaheim, not wanting to lose any lucrative convention business because of a color scheme, decided to spend $10 million to remodel the facility. This will be the first facelift in the center’s history, with the idea to make the whole place look like a giant hotel lobby, said Lynn Thompson, the facility’s general manager.

“There are more and more convention sites being developed,” Thompson said. “In order for (this) convention center to maintain its leadership position, we must keep apace with the needs of our clients.”

While the remodeling is taking place, a $30-million expansion is happening behind the Space Age convention center, which from a distance looks like a flying saucer that happened to land across the street from Disneyland.

The expansion will add 158,000 square feet of space, providing the capacity to handle more of the enormous trade shows that provide an increasing amount of business to convention centers, Lewis said. The remodeling should be finished in about six weeks, with the expansion scheduled for completion early next year, Thompson said.

All 835,000 square feet of the improved convention center will be decorated in the colors of the 1990s: soothing teal blue, gray, burgundy and mauve. Many of the center’s walls have already been painted a pale gray, except for a strip of eye-catching orange along the floor soon to be concealed by a black baseboard.

The orange carpeting, spotted by 22 years of spilled drinks and gum stains, has been scrapped for a mottled floor covering of burgundy, black and navy blue.

“If you don’t know the comparison, it’s hard to imagine the change,” Lewis said, “but psychologically, our employees have commented that the colors have a much more pleasant feel.”

Anaheim has a big stake in improving the convention center because it is a key to the tourism industry, the city’s largest source of revenue. In 1988, a record million delegates attended conventions at the center, generating $1.4 billion in revenue, according to city statistics.

Delegates spend an average of $1,040 each while staying in Anaheim, providing the city with $15.5 million in annual revenues from just the 10% tax paid on hotel rooms. Those kinds of figures, and projections that convention center attendance will increase 71% in the next two years, persuaded city officials to approve the sale of $40 million in bonds to pay for both the expansion and modernization of the facility.

Besides more space, the center will gain 1,700 parking spaces and a $2-million building for its workers that will house repair shops, break rooms, dressing rooms, storage and the like.

With the latest expansion, the center will have more than doubled its capacity since opening in 1967 and secured its position as the largest such facility on the West Coast. The center has been expanded twice before, in 1974 and 1982, but there was never enough money to remodel the place, Thompson said.

About the only orange left these days is in the uniforms worn by the employees, but those are on the way out too. The bright-orange shirts and blazers will be giving way to teal-blue coats and gray pants, a uniform designed by Walt Disney Co.

“Orange served the convention center well,” Thompson said, “but it’s not very orange any more at all.”