Riverside: A City of Arts and Innovation

"Seizing Our Destiny" is a comprehensive roadmap adopted by the City of Riverside to guide its future endeavors. The agenda sets the City’s intent to become known for its outstanding quality of life and the ability to be a catalyst for innovation. Leveraging its many regional advantages, Riverside exists as a choice destination because it provides an abundance of opportunities, including: arts and cultural offerings; well defined, welcoming neighborhoods; strong business environment; diverse educational and recreational opportunities.

A Strategic Initiative
As part of the City of Riverside's goal to reinforce it as a destination of choice, the 35 year-old Convention Center is undergoing a major modernization program. The transformation will bring in additional recreational, sporting, business and trade association events and activities that will enhance downtown vitality by drawing local residents to events and introducing visitors to Riverside.

The current typology of the center is from the era of generic “big-box” facilities. However, as the purpose of convention centers moves away from the processing of large congregations toward more integrated civic buildings, our collective understanding about both their function and their identity needs to evolve. Many existing convention centers have little or no connection to the city they occupy or the culture of their context. The convention center of the future must be welcomed into the public architecture of a city to celebrate both the city and the culture of its people in the community.

Today these multi-purpose, often iconic venues provide platforms for important business, educational, and trade show events. These economic engines play a vital role in positioning their communities in a competitive marketplace.

The design of the new Convention Center is rooted in the idea of Connecting Experience and Place. It is about creating a piece of the city that offers an authentic experience of place that is connected in meaningful ways to the surrounding urban fabric and local environment. The facility is intended to expand emphasis on the quality of the user experience by integrating more flexible and dynamic spaces in which the user experience is created and remembered.

Through community meetings, key design goals, objectives and qualitative attributes were identified to transform the existing facility into a 21st century destination. A unifying theme discussed; create a place to remember, create a great people place, and tell a story of the past, present and future. The project consists of three key design components that include 1. the modernization of the existing building, 2. the creation of a new convention center concourse and 3. a new civic plaza.

Riverside has a rich historical and architectural legacy. The Downtown Specific Plan identifies that new development in Downtown Riverside should be a contemporary expression  of historical architectural characteristics.  The architectural expression for this modernized facility is one that encompasses such design values to embrace the context of the City's downtown area, complimenting the architecture and urban places within the local vernacular.