The Broward County Convention Center is mid-construction on a $1 billion expansion that will add more than 500,000 square feet to its existing campus and bring a public waterfront plaza and new restaurant to the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale, according to the convention center's Instagram.
Planned for a 2026 completion, the project repositions the convention campus beyond its conference-day function. The expansion includes additional meeting space, a dedicated restaurant, and enhanced physical connections to the Intracoastal — a combination designed, per the source, to draw residents and visitors outside of event schedules.
The waterfront restaurant is the detail with the most immediate impact on the surrounding area. The convention center's stretch of the Intracoastal has historically operated as a closed-circuit event venue rather than a walkable public destination. A year-round dining anchor on that stretch would mark a meaningful shift in how the campus relates to the broader Fort Lauderdale waterfront — one that functions on days when the convention halls are empty.
No restaurant operator has been identified at this stage, nor has an architecture or design team been publicly named through this source. The nature of the Intracoastal connections — whether expanded dockage, water-taxi access, or improved pedestrian linkages — is described in general terms in the post without engineering specifics.
At over half a million square feet of new meeting space, the expansion would significantly increase Broward County's ability to compete for large-scale conferences. Fort Lauderdale's existing meeting infrastructure has long sat behind Miami Beach and Orlando in raw capacity; the scale announced here would narrow that gap, though programming, airlift, and hotel room supply remain separate considerations.
The $1 billion figure and the 2026 target are drawn from the convention center's own Instagram disclosure and should be treated as stated rather than independently verified. Filed permits and construction progress reports would offer a more granular read on the project's current delivery timeline.
As 2026 approaches, the restaurant operator announcement and any design-team disclosures will be the details that clarify how this expansion lands in the market. The public waterfront plaza is the element with the longest-lasting neighborhood implications — a permanent amenity on a stretch of Intracoastal frontage that has rarely been publicly accessible.
