The Georgia World Congress Center or GWCC is the major convention center in Atlanta. It is the fourth-largest convention center in the United States at 3.9 million ft2 (360,000 m2) and hosts more than a million visitors each year. At the time opened in 1976 the Georgia World Congress Center was the first state owned Convention Center in the United States. The A, B, and C buildings of the GWCC (the actual Convention Center), Centennial Olympic Park and the Georgia Dome are all run by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority under the auspices of the State of Georgia and funding for new expansions and other major project come from the Georgia General Assembly.
The GWCC is located in downtown Atlanta at 285 Andrew Young International Blvd. NW, adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park, the Georgia Dome, CNN Center and the Philips Arena. Public transportation is serviced by the Dome/GWCC/Philips Arena/CNN Center MARTA station.
The GWCC was designed by Atlanta-based architects Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates (TVS) and is made up of three adjacent buildings, Buildings A, B, and C. In total these buildings have twelve exhibit halls, 105 meeting rooms, and two ballrooms. Building A has three exhibit halls and the Sidney Marcus auditorium seating 1,740. Building B, the largest, contains five exhibit halls and the 33,000 square-foot (3,065 m 2) Thomas B. Murphy Ballroom. The newest building, Building C, has four exhibit halls and the 25,700 square-foot (2,387 m 2) Georgia Ballroom. Other amenities include a FedEx Kinko's office, Starbucks coffee shops, a gift shop, internet access, telephone service, and full IT management provided by CCLD (Convention Center Long Distance), a concierge desk, and a food court plus another restaurant. Freight rail tracks run through the middle of the complex and under the parking decks. The complex incorporates pedestrian bridges to connect exhibit halls on opposite sides of the tracks.
The GWCC opened in 1976 with 350,000 square feet (33,000 m2) of exhibit space. Additional phases opened in 1985, 1992, and 2002. During the 1996 Summer Olympics, the GWCC hosted handball, fencing, judo, table tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, and the fencing and shooting portions of the modern pentathlon. The International Broadcast Center for the worldwide media was also set up inside the GWCC. On November 8, 2001, President George W. Bush made a speech at the GWCC in which he exhorted the crowd of police, firefighters, and politicians, "My fellow Americans, Let's roll!", a phrase he would later use at the 2002 State of the Union address. The center also hosted the 2009 Soul Train Music Awards, the first held outside of the Los Angeles area.
Every year, the GWCC holds the SEC Football Fanfare in one of its convention halls, usually Halls C1 and C2, joined together to create one large exhibition hall. Fanfare is a huge event in early December that occurs simultaneously along with the SEC Championship Game, held in the Georgia Dome. For the 2 day event, thousands of Southeastern Conference football fans attend to see the festivities. The GWCC will play host to WrestleMania Axxess for WrestleMania XXVII at the nearby Georgia Dome.
Though similarly named, the Georgia International Convention Center is a smaller unrelated facility located near Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Delta Air Lines previously had a ticket office in the lobby of the complex.
Read more about Georgia World Congress Center: 2008 Atlanta Tornado
Famous quotes containing the words georgia, world, congress and/or center:
“Being a Georgia author is a rather specious dignity, on the same order as, for the pig, being a Talmadge ham.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom—a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Columbus stood in his age as the pioneer of progress and enlightenment. The system of universal education is in our age the most prominent and salutary feature of the spirit of enlightenment, and it is peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration. Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)