Pennsylvania Convention Center

Pennsylvania Convention Center
From 13th & Arch Streets, looking east down Arch (2013)
Address	1101 Arch Street
Location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Operator	SMG
Opened	1993
Renovated	2011
Expanded	2011
Classroom-style seating	16-1,576
Banquet/ballroom	20-2,000
Theatre seating	40-10,000
Enclosed space
• Total space	1,000,000 sq ft (93,000 m2)
• Exhibit hall floor	679,000 square feet (63,100 m2)
• Breakout/meeting	80 rooms
• Ballroom	87,408 square feet (8,120.5 m2)
Public transit access	11th Street station :   Market–Frankford Line Race-Vine:   Broad Street Line
Website
www.paconvention.com

Coordinates: 39°57′10″N 75°09′33″W / 39.952774°N 75.159120°W / 39.952774; -75.159120

The Pennsylvania Convention Center is a multi-use public facility in the Market East section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed to accommodate conventions, exhibitions, conferences and other events. The "L"-shaped complex occupies four city blocks.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the Philadelphia Civic Center became outmoded. With the opening of the Spectrum in South Philadelphia, fewer big sporting and entertainment events used the Civic Center. Political conventions, too, outgrew the capacity of the Civic Center to host them. By the 1980s, regional and state leaders had begun to plan for a new convention center in the heart of Center City. The Pennsylvania Convention Center opened in 1993 and when it did, most of the events held in the Civic Center, including trade shows and the annual Philadelphia Flower Show, moved to the new facility.

As a result of the construction of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Chinatown buildings located on Arch Street, up to the intersection of 13th Street, were demolished.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center comprises four main halls or rooms, smaller meeting rooms and auditoriums, and the Grand Hall, which occupies much of the trainshed of the former Reading Railroad terminal. (The rest of the train shed is occupied by meeting rooms and a hallway on the main floor, and the Grand Ballroom on the upper floor.) The headhouse entrance to the Convention Center is located at 12th and Market Streets in Center City. The A, B, and C exhibit halls extend across 12th Street, one story up (the 200 level) from the street level (100 level), between 11th and 13th Streets and Arch and Race Streets. At the south side of the A exhibit hall, a walkway extend over Arch Street, south into the grand hall. The opposite end of the grand hall provides a gated entrance into the headhouse lobby for the Marriott Hotel that occupies the old office spaces of Reading Railroad. Access to an adjoining Marriott Hotel is gained from this lobby by means of another second-story walkway over 12th Street.