The $833.9-million Washington Convention Center nearing completion in the nation's capital could contain two Washington Monuments laid end to end. It could also hold six football fields or four Boeing 747 jetliners. The more than 2.3-million-sq-ft building, one of the 10 largest in the U.S., has 16 acres of roof. It contains more than 40,000 tons of steel in 250 trusses and columns. It has roughly 600,000 sq ft of facade, more than 8 acres of masonry walls, and enough piping to run around the Washington Mall 15 times.
"Everything about the convention center is supersized," says Mark J. Tamaro, project manager for the local structural engineer of record, James Madison Cutts Consulting Structural Engineers Inc.