New D.C. Ctr. Breaks Ground, Bids For Old Ctr.'s Biz

<B> New D.C. Ctr. Breaks Ground, Bids For Old Ctr.'s Biz</B>

By Barbara Cook

Construction on Washington's new convention center has finally begun, with bookings already being made for the center's planned opening in March 2003, said Dan Mobley, president of the Washington, D.C., Convention and Visitors Association.

The $650 million center will be the eighth largest in the country when it opens and is expected to generate more than $780 million in revenue during its first five years of operation. The new center will span six blocks in downtown Washington at Mount Vernon Square, and will be located just two blocks from the existing center.

With a 2.1 million-sq.-ft. facility, the center will position the nation's capital to bid for major conventions and trade shows once again. Additionally, the new center will be the only one in the United States to have subway and rail access directly to the building.

The center will include 725,000 square feet of exhibit space, 210,000 square feet of meetings space, consisting of 71 meeting rooms, and a 60,000-sq.-ft. divisible ballroom, the largest in the Northeast.

Technology advances in the new center will include fiber optic wiring, video teleconferencing, Internet and intranet connectivity, computer-controlled sound reinforcement for internal and external recording, satellite uplinks and downlinks for worldwide communications and access for visually and hearing-impaired guests.

Organizations interested in the new center include a number of medical associations that outgrew the old 381,000-sq.-ft. center but are interested in returning to Washington when the new building is ready, Mobley said.

Mobley's convention sales force has kept in touch with organizations that stopped holding trade shows at the old center due to its size limitations. "We made sure we would see them at trade shows and we assured them we would have a new center," he said. "We had a good reception from them. We want to be proactive on selling space in the new facility, not reactive."

The center is located within a 10-minute walk from 2,500 hotel rooms and has spurred a rash of hotel building and renovation in the area. The existing convention center, built in 1983, now ranks 30th in size in the United States and is considered to be technologically obsolete, city officials said.

Excavation on the new building began March 1 and thus far 25 percent of the digging has been completed, said Mobley. Since the front of the new structure will be 50 feet below ground, the excavation process will continue for nearly a year.

As part of the incentive to win local support for the new building, the center has funded a $1 million set-aside for historic preservation activities and $1 million for development activities in the surrounding Shaw community.