The Walter E. Washington Convention Center is a 2.3-million-square-foot (210,000 m2) convention center located in Washington, D.C., owned and operated by the city's convention arm, Events DC.

Venue: Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Address: 801 Mt Vernon Pl NW, Washington, DC 20001
Town: Washington, D.C., US

The Walter E. Washington Convention Center is a 2.3-million-square-foot (210,000 m2) convention center located in Washington, D.C., owned and operated by the city's convention arm, Events DC. Designed in a joint venture by the Atlanta-based architecture firm Tvsdesign, Washington, D.C.-based architects Devrouax & Purnell Architects Planners PC and Mariani and Associates, the convention center is located in a superblock bounded by Mount Vernon Square and 7th, 9th and N streets, N.W. It is served by the Mount Vernon Square station on the Yellow and Green lines of the Washington Metro. It was completed in 2003. The center is noted for its extensive permanent collection of contemporary art, the largest of any convention center in the United States and one of the largest public art collections in Washington, D.C., outside of a museum, including works by Sam Gilliam, Sol LeWitt, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Sarah Sze, and Carrie Mae Weems. Six of the nine official inaugural balls for the 2005 second inauguration of George W. Bush were held at the convention center. In 2006, the Council of the District of Columbia approved legislation naming the then-Washington Convention Center in honor of the city's first home rule mayor, the late Walter E. Washington. In 2008, the WCSA Board of Directors agreed to expand the newly built convention center by 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2). Six of the 10 official balls of the 2009 Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama took place there, including the first-ever Neighborhood Ball. The center was the principal site of the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit hosted by President Barack Obama. On November 10, 2011, ground was broken on the 14-story Washington Marriott Marquis, a $520 million, four-star, 1,175-room "convention center headquarters hotel" with more than 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2) of meeting room space. Also in 2011, the convention center hosted a major fight card with a welterweight championship match between Lamont Peterson and Amir