Convention Center Project Ending Framework Phase

New exhibit and meeting space at the 32-year-old Anaheim Convention Center is taking shape as the dramatic, 140-foot-high steel framework creating part of the multimillion-dollar expansion is nearing completion.

The steel work, which started in June, is only the beginning of the massive undertaking to make the city-owned facility the largest convention center on the West Coast.

Completion of the $169-million expansion is expected in December 2000. Workers finished a first phase in June that included increasing one hall from 150,000 square feet to 225,000 square feet and installing a mechanical and air conditioning plant.

The project, which adds 760,000 square feet for a total of 1.4 million, is on schedule and within budget, said Greg Smith, stadium and convention center executive director.

At a City Council workshop last week to update officials, the project’s architects said the center will have lots of personality.

Convention centers traditionally were built like a “box with docks,” said Steve Brubaker of the St. Louis-based architectural firm HOK, which drafted plans for the expansion.

Brubaker said more convention centers are being built with architectural distinction because it gives them a competitive edge.

When Anaheim’s convention and meeting venue is expanded, it will definitely be in a class of its own, he said: “Since it opens at the turn of the century, it will reflect the new millennium. It’s a building that looks forward, but builds on the region’s past.”

The exterior and interior will reflect Southern California, including its agricultural history. A quarter-mile-long wall, 140 feet high, will portray a strata of colors depicting the landscape, from sand tones of the desert and beach to the greens of valleys and fields and the blue hues of the ocean and sky.

“There’s been a lot of thought and time spent on trying to build a building that is an architectural masterpiece but that still has a relationship to the community,” Smith said. “That’s what we’ve done in trying to reflect the history of Anaheim and the region. People will enjoy coming to this building because it has a story to tell.”

The work has also prompted a number of bookings for 2001 and beyond--including some large trade shows that had pulled out. One of the shows returning in January 2001 is the National Assn. of Music Merchants, the center’s largest show that had drawn more than 60,000 attendees. That show left Anaheim this year.

A number of smaller shows are also booked through 2008: “They wouldn’t have come back unless we expanded,” Smith said.