Lauren "Bubba" McDonald will speak at the open house/20th anniversary celebration at the Commerce Civic Center Saturday. McDonald convinced the Wrangler Co. to donate the building to the city.

Civic center to mark 20th anniversary

Posted by
Mark Beardsley
in Area Headline News
Friday, June 25. 2010
Comments (0)
Since it opened in 1990, more than 400,000 people have attended events from church services to weddings, from tool shows to high school proms at the Commerce Civic Center.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the civic center, Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, who was the first to envision its potential and who talked the Wrangler Company into giving it to the city, will highlight a 20-year celebration Saturday at 2 p.m. at the center.


There will be an open house from 2:00 to 5:00 as part of the City Lights Festival.
McDonald, who was on the World Congress Center Authority during his tenure in the General Assembly, was reportedly struck by the building’s potential after he responded to a fire call at the then-vacant former sewing plant in 1980.

Not only did McDonald get Wrangler to deed the building to the city for the sum of $1, but he also got a $125,000 state grant to renovate the facility.

The first time the building was renovated was in 1990. Since them, the center has hosted more than 5,600 events (1,500 of them catered) attended by more than 400,000 people, according to Kerry Johnson, who manages the center.

As part of the 20-year anniversary celebration, the authority will rename its Executive room for Nix.
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