The convention center in the Seaport could soon carry the name of former Mayor Thomas Menino under a proposal House lawmakers plan to include in an economic development bill they are expected to release later today.

The move to rename the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center after Menino comes as the tenth anniversary of his death approaches and is a nod to the political heavyweight, who used his clout to revamp the then-rundown Seaport District into a trendy, glimmering hub anchored by the massive event space.

House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz, a North End Democrat who worked for Menino during and after college, said the former mayor was the architect of a large portion of the Seaport, which has since become a “huge economic engine for the city.”

For many growing up in Boston, the Seaport was originally a “wasteland kind of area with parking lots and some small facilities” and Menino had the “vision that I don’t think everyone else saw” to transform the area,” Michelwtiz said.

“He had the steadfast desire to kind of get it done and I mean it’s not perfect. There’s definitely still some challenges related to the growth of it. But from where it is now to where it was is remarkable and a testament to his vision,” Michlewitz told the Herald over the weekend.

Members of the House’s Democratic leadership want to rename the building the Thomas Michael Menino Convention and Exhibition Center. The push comes at the same time conversation has bubbled up around renaming Logan Airport after Celtics legend Bill Russell.

Menino died in October 2014 after a long battle with cancer and long-time friends remembered him as a political juggernaut who ran the “city with an iron fist and a common man’s touch,” the Herald reported at the time.

In a statement to the Herald, Menino’s widow, Angela Menino, said it is “very emotional after ten years for people to remember Tommy.”

“This is an incredible honor and our family couldn’t be more grateful to the leadership for thinking of him and recognizing his love of this city through the naming of the convention center… now I know he will always be remembered. Thank you, thank you,” Angela Menino said.

Thomas Menino and former Gov. Mitt Romney opened the convention center in mid-June 2004 after an $800 million construction project and just as pols in Boston were arguing over whether to host that year’s Democratic National Convention at the then-FleetCenter across town or the newly-minted event space.

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Officials went with the FleetCenter, now known as TD Garden, over the convention center, with Menino arguing the Seaport building was more difficult to make safe due its proximity to the harbor and Logan Airport.

As the doors to the convention center opened, it became the 15th largest space in the country at the time and Menino pitched it as a way to bring a much-needed economic boost to the city and attract developers to transform the neighborhood.

The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, pictured on its opening day on June 10, 2004, was pitched as a potential economic driver for the city. (Pastrick Whittemore/Boston Herald)

The first large-scale event scheduled for the exhibit hall was the Macworld Conference and Expo about a month after doors opened, according to reporting from the time.

Construction started on the building in 2000 but it was mired in troubled economic times, including the dot-com bubble burst which sent the nation’s economy spinning and forced Massachusetts officials to make hard budget cuts.

The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center was first devised in the 1990s as a way to replace its smaller sibling on Boylston Street, the Hynes Convention Center, which proved to be too small for many large events and led many to pass on Boston.

With the 10th anniversary of his death only a few months away in October, Michlewitz said the former mayor taught many of the people that worked for him “what it means to be a public servant whether you ended up running for office or not.”

“He was tough. He expected, I don’t want to say perfection, but he expected you to give your all and commit your all to the city. But he also was one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met,” Michlewitz said. “He never turned off, which is why he was so good at what he did, because he cared so deeply about the day in and day out work of being mayor. He changed the game about being mayor.”

Former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino speaks at an opening day ceremony for the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on June 10, 2004. (Pastrick Whittemore/Boston Herald)

The language to rename the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center will be tucked away in what is expected to be an expansive economic development from the House, the details of which were scheduled to be released later today.

Michlewitz said the chamber’s plan to clock in at $2.86 billion, which is slightly higher than Gov. Maura Healey’s version filed in March if changes she proposed to economic development tax programs are not factored in.

Healey’s bill, which carries a $3.5 billion total fiscal impact, included a reauthorization of a ten-year $1 billion investment program aimed at the life sciences sector and a plan to start a similar measure for climate technology.

“This economic development bill will prime Massachusetts for sustained leadership in an innovative, mission-oriented, high-growth economy,” she said at an event in February, days before handing the bill over to the Legislature.

ONLINE: Head to Bostonherald.com to see the 2023 4th Quarter payroll for the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. It’s part of the Herald’s “Your Tax Dollars at Work” rolling report.