The George R. Brown Convention Center (GRB), opened on September 26, 1987, is located on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The center was named for internationally recognized entrepreneur, engineer, civic leader, philanthropist and Houstonian George R. Brown (1898–1983). George and his brother, Herman, turned Brown & Root into the world's largest construction and engineering company. Later, he and investors founded Texas Eastern Transmission Company, which donated six of the 11 blocks required to build the GRB. The center is owned by the city of Houston and managed by the Houston First Corporation. The facility was completed with a price tag of $104.9 million (equivalent to $ in ), requiring 30 months and more than 1,200 workers. The red-white-and-blue building replaced the obsolete Albert Thomas Convention Center, which was later redeveloped into the Bayou Place entertainment complex in the downtown Houston Theater District. It is the first convention center in the world to have a permanent Bitcoin ATM. The convention center is served by METRORail light rail service at Convention District station. History The center sits where the Pillot House, a house owned by the family of one of the founders of the Henke & Pillot supermarket chain, used to be. The Pillot House was moved to Sam Houston Park in 1965. Designed by John S. Chase, the first licensed Black-American architect in Texas. The first convention held in the GRB began on October 11, 1987, for the American Society of Travel Agents. A renovation project began on July 28, 2001 to expand the convention center and build an adjacent 1,200-room convention headquarters hotel at a cost of $165 million (equivalent to $ in ) and requiring 27 months of construction. The adjacent hotel is the Hilton Americas-Houston, which is connected to the convention center via two skywalks. The hotel and convention center are not connected to the Houston tunnel system. The project expanded the center from . Three exhibit halls were added to increase exhibition space from , and 62 meeting rooms were added for a total of 105. Completion of the project concluded in November 2003, a few months before Super Bowl XXXVIII. There is also a 3,600-seat General Assembly Theater which can be used for concerts, Broadway shows, conferences, meetings, and other events, while Exhibit Hall B3 can be converted into a 6,500-seat indoor arena for concerts and sports using telescopic seating. At the