Orlando Convention Center

The Orange County Convention Center (sometimes known as the Orlando Convention Center) in Orlando, located on International Drive, is the second largest convention center in the country. Each year an estimated 1.5 million people visit the center, which has seven million square feet of meeting, exhibition and public space.

Ground was broken on the Orlando convention center in 1980, the first $54 million phase of the project took three years to complete. The ground breaking for the second phase of the center was in 1986 and took another three years to complete at a cost of $83.5 million. Phase three was completed in 1996 for $219.5 million and phase four was completed later that same year for an additional $198.7 million.

The end result of all that building is a massive structure, check out some of these amazing facts from the Orlando convention center:

One expansion alone took 27,000 tons of steel - in comparison, the Eiffel Tower took 7.3 tons of steel to build.

If Chicago’s 1,454 foot tall Sears Tower was placed on its side, it would fit in the exhibition space – including the antenna – and you’d have more than 1,000 feet to spare.

The Orlando Convention center’s largest ballroom is larger than a football field, including the end zones, and can hold up to 6,000 people.

More than 50 miles of pilings support the center’s West building alone.