Located in downtown Long Beach, CA at the intersection of Pine and Seaside Way, the nautically-themed Long Beach Convention Center was recently "tied to port" by architectural concrete paving simulating a rolling wave. The paving makes up a large pedestrian promenade that extends along the front of the new addition to the convention center in a design that called for complex "Sunburst" and "Wave" patterns.

The promenade paving is made up of approximately 35,000 square feet of a 4000 PSI lightweight concrete topping slab over a waterproofed third floor concrete deck. The concrete design of undulating colored concrete "waves" and a "sunburst" pattern was created by utilizing White and Dark Green color hardener over a natural gray concreted substrate. The forming technique required precision to achieve the geometry necessary to create the effect of rolling concrete waves. Each wave was individually formed and poured; in the end, the concrete was finished with a light acid wash to soften the coloring.

The addition was designed by Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates, an architectural firm out of Atlanta, GA. Specifications required the successful bidder to be pre-qualified to handle a project of the complexity and magnitude that the paving of the promenade was. Lance Boyer of Sullivan Concrete Textures of Costa Mesa, CA, who was awarded the contract for the paving project, worked in conjunction with Architect H. Preston Crum approximately one year before the project was publicly bid. This pre-construction consulting resulted in plans and specifications that reflected the architect's design intent, which was to tie the promenade to the convention center, with its ship-like exterior, and also to the whole area of Long Beach, a large port in Southern California. The pre-construction planning also resulted in a proposed method to construct the difficult layout with efficiency and effectiveness.

The project was completed in May of 1994, with the new addition to the Long Beach Convention Center proving to be "seaworthy", reinforcing downtown Long Beach's identity as a port essential to the livelihood of Southern Californiaand certainly as an area with great examples of professional design. LASN