Venues To The Rescue

You may know them, you may have even attended one of their many events, but you may not recognize the halls if you walked them today. With the widespread cancellation of trade shows and events, many convention centers have taken it upon themselves to rise from the ashes, grab their shields (and face masks), and get to work! Floors that were once meticulously structured to host hundreds of companies to network are now repurposed to give aid to patients and come to the rescue during the COVID-19 crisis.

The Javits Center

In our previous post, Always A Silver Lining, we mentioned the Javits Center, a convention center in New York City that has become a temporary medication station in the effort to ease the pressure of a surge of patients.

The center transformed into a 2,000-bed complex consisting of four 250-bed temporary hospitals. It has arrived, served others, and is exiting with a salute. A recent article states that the center is planning to close May 3-May 5.

McCormick Place

North America’s largest convention center, located in Chicago, Illinois, converted into a 3,050-bed field hospital. Since it’s opening and service, it has already put into plan to scale back to approximately 1,000 beds as the curve continues to flatten.

Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

The New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center is known for its lively events is set to open as a temporary hospital to serve patients who are recovering from the virus for up to 60 days.

They are also using this time to be proactive completing restoration of the facility prior to events returning.

Baltimore Convention Center

The Baltimore Convention Center is set to open soon and accept patients. The center filled up its exhibit hall with 250 beds in operations with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Johns Hopkins Medicine.

TCF Center

Detroit’s TCF Center has become a field hospital with about 970 beds to care for recovering patients and stations for medical personnel.

These are just a few amongst the centers that have offered up their event space to be an important tool in the aid of relieving their local medical centers during the global pandemic. Until we can all meet and network again, we salute you and all who are of service during this time.