Houston city officials and hotel developers break ground on a 262-room Embassy Suites hotel located only two blocks from the 1,200,000-square-foot George R. Brown Convention Center, which features 639,000 contiguous square feet of meeting/exhibition space situated in five street-level exhibit halls. Digging in for the ceremony are (left to right) Peter Brown, Houston City Councilman, Vicki Massad, Chief Operating Officer of project developer American Liberty Hospitality, James Rodriguez, Houston City Councilman, Nick Massad Jr., President/CEO of American Liberty, Houston Mayor Bill White, Billy Glass, president of Gentry Mills Capital, and Ted Ent, vice president of Hilton Hotels Corporation. The hotel is expected to open in March 2011.