SAN FRANCISCO – The city of San Francisco is exploring plans to significantly expand Moscone Center to compete for large conventions that it now must cede to bigger venues and prevent lucrative trade shows like Oracle OpenWorld from defecting to other locations.

A preliminary proposal would replace three buildings east of the main convention area with several mixed-use towers in a public-private partnership that would include 180,000 square feet of meeting space, a 100,000-square-foot underground convention structure and a parking facility, said Dan Kelleher, chairman of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau's Moscone Center expansion task force.

The new "Moscone East" would constitute a nearly 25 percent expansion of the current 1.2 million-square-foot center, which is owned and administered by the city. It is seen as a first step in positioning San Francisco to better compete for trade show business against cities like New Orleans or Las Vegas, where the convention centers are 3 million square feet or more.

"We're at capacity, basically, and we need to be able to expand in order to not just keep our existing business but to grow for the future," said Joe D'Alessandro, chief executive officer of the bureau.

Kelleher expects the broader economy will have turned around well before any Moscone expansion could be finished. Kelleher, who is also general manager of the San Francisco Marriott, put the earliest completion date at 2017.

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