The George R. Brown Convention Center was opened on the east side of downtown Houston amid great 
civic celebration on September 26, 1987. The public fanfare included a parade, music festival, aerial artwork, red-carpet tours, and a ribbon-cutting by Mayor Kathryn Whitmire. A spectacular fireworks show capped the unveiling.
The center was named for the late Houston entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist George R. Brown. Brown’s Texas Eastern Corp. donated six of the 11 blocks required to build Houston’s sparkling new red-white-and-blue convention center.
The new facility, which is owned and operated by the City of Houston, was completed “on time and under budget” with a price tag of $104.9 million. Construction required 30 months with more than 1,200 workers on site. The sale of bonds, to be repaid by hotel occupancy tax revenues, spared local taxpayers any new burden.
The sleek 100-foot-high building replaced the obsolete Albert Thomas Convention Center, which was later redeveloped into the Bayou Place entertainment complex at its site in the downtown Theater District. The futuristic-looking new convention center was designed by a consortium of Houston architects and engineers to symbolize the building’s devotion to function, according to chief designer Mario Bolullo of Golemon & Bolullo Architects.
“I designed it to reflect the city’s futuristic attitude, from technology at NASA to research at the Texas Medical Center to the offshore drilling rigs,” Bolullo said.
Architects were aided by an advisory committee of meeting and trade show professionals who helped in planning the new center’s state-of-the-art details. Gerard J. “Jordy” Tollett, the original director of the George R. Brown Convention Center, was also instrumental in the facility design.
The first convention held in the George R. Brown Convention Center was the American Society of Travel Agents beginning on October 11, 1987.
On July 28, 2001, ground was broken on a joint project to seamlessly expand the convention
center and build an adjacent 1,200-room convention headquarters hotel. At a cost of $165 million and requiring 27 months of construction, the Brown grew from 1,150,000 square feet to 1,800,000 square feet. Three exhibit halls were added to increase exhibition space from 451,500 square feet to 853,500 square feet. Fifty-seven meeting rooms were added for a total of 100.
Expansion was completed and marked by a community celebration on December 3, 2003.
Today, the George R. Brown Convention Center is managed by the City of Houston's Convention & Entertainment Facilities Department, Dawn Ullrich, director, and Luther Villagomez, general manager.