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'Virtual tour' of new Pittsburgh convention center unveiled
Thursday, August 09, 2001 By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Local convention promoters have a new tool to use in their efforts to push Pittsburgh as a destination for national and regional conventions, meetings and trade shows.
The Greater Pittsburgh Convention & Visitors Bureau yesterday unveiled a four-minute "virtual tour" of the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center, a $328 million facility now under construction along Fort Duquesne Boulevard and 10th Street.
The convention bureau's sales staff has already begun using the high-tech video in order to market the expanded convention center to meeting planners around the country.
It gives viewers the look and feel of the new convention center -- how it sits next to the Allegheny River, what it looks like from the inside out and other features not available in one-dimensional, conceptual drawings, said bureau President Joseph McGrath.
Viewers can get a sense of how the glassed-in, swept-roof building will look, how the huge main exhibition hall and the new meeting rooms will look, how walls can be pushed back to create larger interior spaces, how large gathering areas will function next to a new ballroom, and other aspects of the building, which was designed by New York City architect Rafael Vinoly.
The new "virtual tour" was produced by the local firm Cadnetics Inc. for "less than $100,000," McGrath said.
In voice-over used in the video, an announcer says the new convention center will make a "stunning riverfront statement," with "glass walls that give a commanding view of the Allegheny," creating a "modern glass palace bathed in natural light."
Until now, said convention bureau Vice President Robert Imperata, the sales staff has had static facts and figures, along with a three-dimensional model of the new convention center.
But this new virtual tour' should be a great help in letting prospective conventioneers see how the building will actually look when it opens in March 2003, he said.
"Meeting planners want to know, 'Will this building work for my group?' " McGrath said.
Pittsburgh's virtual tour made its debut earlier this week at the American Society of Association Executives annual meeting in Philadelphia, attended by 6,000 meeting planners and media professionals who decide where many conventions are held, McGrath said.
Click to interior views of the center from yesterday's virtual tour.
Though the virtual tour lasts only four minutes, there are several icons a viewer can click on for more detailed information about specific features of the new convention center -- such as the 34,000-square-foot ballroom and banquet facility (which the old Lawrence center built in 1981 never had), the 250,000-square-foot main exhibit hall (three times as big as the now-razed Lawrence center), the 80,000-square-foot secondary exhibit hall, areas where cocktail parties can be held, the 53 meeting rooms and the 37 truckloading docks.
The main exhibit hall will be "columnless," which officials said is good because it makes it easier for exhibitors to set up their booths and displays. It will have large glass walls that will reduce energy costs by letting natural light in and will have a curved, stainless steel ceiling 99 feet above the floor at its highest point.
The first section of the new convention center, at Garrison Place and Fort Duquesne Boulevard, is on schedule to open in January, McGrath said. More space will open in October 2002 and the building will be fully open by March 2003.
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