Colored flags outside Moscone Center
|Owner||City and County of San Francisco|
|Built||1981 (Moscone South)|
|Construction cost||US$157 million (Moscone North)
US$158 million (Moscone West)
|Exhibit hall floor||over 700,000 sq ft (65,000 m2)|
|Breakout/meeting||up to 106 meeting rooms
up to 256,225 sq ft (23,804.1 m2)
Moscone Center // is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street. It was initially built in 1981 by architects Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum as one single hall, Moscone South, and named after San Francisco former mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated in November 1978.
The South of Market Area where Moscone Center was built was claimed by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, and a protracted battle was fought by the displaced low-income residents during the 1960s and 1970s.
Although named after the slain former mayor, Moscone opposed the development of the area when he served on the SF Board of Supervisors in the 1960s because he felt it would displace elderly and poor residents of the area. As mayor, Moscone convened a special committee of proponents and opponents of a convention center. Hearings were held throughout SF seeking citizen input. A compromise was reached which was supported by Moscone. He put the matter on the ballot and it passed overwhelmingly.
Labor organizations supported the construction of the Center, and were granted full labor jurisdiction. All labor in the Convention Center is performed by I.A.T.S.E. Local 16 Stagehands, Sign and Display Workers Local #510, Brotherhood of Teamsters local #65, IBEW Local #6, Security I.A.T.S.E. Local #B-18, Communications Workers of America, and the Hotel & Restaurant Workers Local #2. 
Moscone Center is known for hosting several large professional gatherings, such as the VMworld, Oracle OpenWorld, Macworld Expo, RSA Conference, American Geophysical Union's fall meeting, American Bar Association's annual meeting, the Game Developers Conference, the Microsoft's Build (conference), the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Google I/O, JavaOne and public gated events such as WonderCon and the 1984 Democratic National Convention.
The Democratic Party of the United States held its 1984 convention at the Convention Center, nominating Walter Mondale for President of the United States and Geraldine Ferraro for Vice President (the first time a woman had ever been nominated by a major party for either office); they went on to lose the election to Republican incumbents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush by the second-largest electoral margin ever.
The expansion of Moscone North and Moscone West in 1992 and 2003, designed by Gensler, added an additional 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) to its original 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) of exhibit space.
A large solar electricity system was installed on the roof of the center in March 2004. The installation of this system marked San Francisco's first major step towards obtaining all municipal energy from pollution-free sources. With the 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) solar array (675 kW capacity) in place, San Francisco boasts one of the largest city-owned solar installations in the country. The electricity generated by the solar system, combined with savings from energy efficiency measures, delivers the equivalent energy to power approximately 8,500 homes.
The location of the complex in the South of Market area provides easy access to downtown San Francisco's many hotels and restaurants, as well as major transportation systems such as BART and Muni Metro. The Amtrak bus stop at Moscone Center (station code SFM) also transports riders to the Emeryville Amtrak station.
Moscone North and South underwent a two-year renovation project completed in 2012. The renewal project was designed by HOK, the center's original architect. The 2004 solar installation was done by PowerLight Corporation.