Throwback Thursday: When the new convention center opened as the hope of downtown in 1973

“I’m optimistic as hell,” Hall told the Dayton Daily News days before the Jan. 13, 1973 opening. “I’m not the brightest guy in the world, but the one thing I can do is add two and two. The building’s paid for, the rent is cheap. It can’t miss.”

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Dave Hall Plaza and the new convention center were designed for “a section of downtown that long has been dark.” On opening day the continuing plan, “10 years in the dreaming and two year plus in the building,” according the newspaper, was still seeking a “quality hotel” to invest across Fifth Street.

The $6 million dollar Convention and Exhibition Center, designed by Deneau, Kleski Architects, took up an entire block of the plaza and offered 77,000 square feet of exhibition space.

A hopeful stimulant for downtown, it opened with “room for banquets that would hold up to 3,000, air conditioning throughout, fine lighting, superb sound capabilities, staging equipment, and dance floors,” with flexibility for more.

"I believe the center will be a traffic generator for downtown," said Dayton Mayor James McGee. "It will bring people into the sector and those who come will see what we have to offer. It will generate business and advertise our city."

» SEE ALSO: James H. McGee, Dayton's trailblazing mayor

An escalator ride up to the third floor of the new Exhibition Center took visitors to the new home of the Aviation Hall of Fame.

A mosaic mural made of 163,296 individual tiles made in Italy was the centerpiece of the lobby. The mural, donated by the Rike Foundation, depicted the Wright brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk in 20 “gray scale” values.

The opening of the new Exhibition Center kicked off with Dayton on Parade, a business and industry show highlighting local businesses.

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An alphabetical list of more than 200 firms attending the event spanned two columns of the newspaper including the Ohio Bell Telephone, Rike-Kumler and the National Cash Register companies.

A parade of visitors streamed inside the mammoth new facility to glimpse the downtown renewal project and the very first convention.

A moon rock on loan from the Lewis Observatory in Cleveland, a replica of NCR’s first cash register and a race car driven by Indianapolis 500 winner Mark Donahue helped draw the crowd.

Former Mayor Hall, the “father of the center” told a reporter that the exhibition center would “make all the difference in the world to downtown. This now makes the downtown.”