Expect more visitors to Tri-Cities as $10 million Discovery Hall opens

A hundred people will gather in Richland on Tuesday, just a day after a $9.8 million building constructed to allow scientists to gather and collaborate opened at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Visit Tri-Cities conservatively estimates that each person coming to the Tri-Cities for a convention, like Tuesday's Nuclear Materials Management Workshop, will drop $150 a day into the Tri-Cities economy on hotels, meals, sightseeing and other spending.

If they are wine enthusiasts, they likely will spend far more, said Michael Novakovich, the new president of the region's tourism bureau.

Discovery Hall on Horn Rapids Road already is being booked for scientific events three years out, proof of the need for the facility, said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday.

PNNL, a Department of Energy laboratory, planned the new center as a place where researchers could gather either for large symposiums or for the increasing number of meetings among researchers in different disciplines and working for different agencies as complex science requires more collaboration.

The national lab has lacked space for visiting researchers to discuss joint proposals or projects, and for large gatherings.

In 2011, the lab had to bring in a large tent because it had no space large enough to serve lunch to participants in a symposium on batteries for energy storage.

The new building, which was known as the Collaboration Center until its permanent name was selected, has 24,000 square feet.

It can seat 456 people theater-style — more than 150 beyond than PNNL's Battelle Auditorium — or 262 people classroom-style.

It also has smaller conference rooms and meeting spaces, all with state-of-the-art wireless connectivity and audio-visual capabilities.

PNNL researchers were included on the design team for the new building to ensure "an environment particularly conducive to scientific collaboration," said Steven Ashby, PNNL director.

Because of the size of Discovery Hall, the American Chemical Society's regional meeting will be held for the first time at the lab in June. About 400 people are expected.

It and other gatherings at the new building will be an opportunity to showcase the PNNL campus and build the lab's reputation as a leading scientific institution, Ashby said.

Novakovich said he looks at each visitor to Discovery Hall as an opportunity to build on the Tri-Cities' reputation for science tourism.

Tourists can go inside historic B Reactor, where the atomic age was launched, or visit the LIGO observatory, which launched a new branch of astronomy as it detects gravitational waves from outer space.

"Hopefully, they go back and tell their friends and colleagues about the amenities and attractions and they come and visit," Novakovich said.

Discovery Hall was built with federal money. The architect was TVA Architects of Portland and the construction contractor was Fowler General Construction of Richland.

PNNL has been opening about one new building annually in recent years. A 12-year, $300 million plan began in federal fiscal 2013 to construct new facilities and modernize existing structures on the PNNL campus.

Annette Cary; 509-582-1533; @HanfordNews

This story was originally published April 30, 2018 at 12:46 PM with the headline "Expect more visitors to Tri-Cities as $10 million Discovery Hall opens."