The site where the convention centre now stands was originally intended for a sports complex to have been dubbed as the "Cebu Mega Dome".

A contest was held for its design and the winning entry was the "spinning disc" by Architect Alexus Medalla.

Since the province lacked a stand-alone convention centre with complete facilities for a large and prestigious international gathering like the ASEAN Summit, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia revived the "mega dome" project but with the design revised as a convention centre instead of a sports arena.

A few weeks afterwards a new design was put forwards and was considered, since it was cheaper and easier to build (granting that it was smaller in size too) and that there was a time constraint that the Cebu Provincial Government had to stick to.

[1][2][3] Since then, the ramshackle building has fallen into a state of severe disrepair and has been overtaken by people within who were victims of a fire in nearby barangays Guizo and Mantuyong.