Bust of convention center champion Milton Graham unveiled at West Building

The atrium lobby of the Phoenix Convention Center’s West Building, with its towering glass walls and Grand Canyon-inspired colors, was finished nearly two years ago. But it was not really complete until Wednesday afternoon.

That’s when Phoenix’s city leaders gathered in the West Building atrium to unveil a bronze bust of the late Milton Graham, the former mayor who first envisioned a convention center in downtown Phoenix.

Graham served as Phoenix’s mayor from 1964 to 1970. He championed the need for a convention center during all three of his terms in office, and his ardent support of the issue was the hottest political topic of his 1967 bid for re-election.

“Mayor Graham laid the groundwork for this building we’re standing in today,” said Greater Phoenix Convention & Visitors Bureau President and CEO Steve Moore, who presided over the dedication ceremony. “He was an early and energetic advocate of the creation of the convention center. He may have ended his political career as a result of this, but he never stopped believing. He never lost his passion.”

Graham’s stance on the convention center may have been unpopular with the local newspaper’s editorial board, but his vision ultimately won out. Construction on Phoenix Civic Plaza began in 1969, and the facility was completed in 1972. The original Civic Plaza occupied 16.5 acres and cost $28 million to build.

Phoenix’s current mayor, Phil Gordon, told Wednesday’s gathering that he admired Graham’s willingness to bear a political albatross for the good of Phoenix. “He would talk to me about what’s important,” Mayor Gordon said. “He told me, ‘Make sure you’re building a city, not a political future.’ ”

Fittingly, as Mayor Gordon spoke to a cordoned-off crowd that included Graham’s niece, Cathy Rempe, and former State Senator Rusty Bowers, who sculpted Graham’s bust, convention attendees milled about the West Building’s atrium. This particular convention, the Waste Management Symposium, consists of 3,000 delegates who will spend an estimated $4.4 million during their stay in the city.

The West Building is just the first phase of a $600 million expansion project. When the second and final phase, the North Building, welcomes its first meeting groups in January 2009, the fully expanded complex will be one of the 20 largest convention centers in the nation. Its 900,000 square feet of meeting space - which includes three ballrooms, $3.2 million worth of public art, and ecologically friendly features like solar paneling and a water-harvesting garden - will be able to accommodate 80 percent of the convention groups in the U.S.

City officials expect the new convention center to bring in more than 300,000 meeting delegates each year.

Said Gordon: “Mayor Graham left us an asset - the foundation, literally and figuratively, of what we see here today.”

Graham’s belief in the convention center continued throughout his life. He served on the Civic Plaza Board for several years and was a member of the Greater Phoenix CVB Board of Directors until his death in 2006.

Ironically, Graham died on the night of Aug. 25, 2006 - the very evening more than 700 business leaders and elected officials celebrated the formal opening of the West Building.

In his eulogy to Graham four days later, Mayor Gordon remarked: “Who but Milt Graham could dream of building a facility right in the middle of town, to host national conventions, big trade shows and feature a performing arts center? He could see, when many could not, how that would benefit our entire city and state - economically and culturally - for generations to come.”

During that eulogy Mayor Gordon also made note of Graham’s insistence that the city acquire an extensive collection of artwork for Civic Plaza “to give it a soul.” That vision lives on, too.

As part of the expansion project, 10 artists were selected to create hallmark pieces for the new buildings. One of them is sculptor Louise Bourgeois, whose works can also be found at New York’s Guggenheim museum and London’s famed Tate Gallery. She created the 90-foot mirrored sculpture Art Is a Guaranty of Sanity, which is the centerpiece of the West Building’s atrium.

Eight more installations eventually will adorn the North Building, including a sidewalk array of LED lights designed to replicate the Sonoran Desert’s night-blooming cereus plant; a pair of giant sentries inspired by the columnar figures at Tula, Mexico; and a trio of whimsical sculptures of desert creatures that will occupy the water-harvesting garden.

“Mayor Graham knew that artists have always been central to every civilization, and he knew that art was central to Phoenix,” Gordon said. “He was so pleased that public art is front-and-center in the new, expanded Phoenix Convention Center.”