Brief remarks, a light reception and a small ceremony marked the completion of highest structural portion of the building, which is scheduled to open in early Fall 2000. The event also honored the building�s work crews, who were treated to a holiday lunch and early dismissal that day. The ceremony was a �hard hat affair,� taking place within the actual construction site, along the Elizabeth River waterfront in Portsmouth.

The �Topping-out� ceremony is a building industry tradition based on a 1,300-year-old Scandinavian custom of crowning newly completed structures with evergreen branches to assure good luck. In modern times, the ceremony is held when the topmost part of a building is put in place, marking the mid-point in its construction.

Stormont Trice Corp. chairman Richard Stormont noted in his remarks that the hotel and conference center symbolized the promise of new business, visitors and employment for the city of Portsmouth in the new millennium.

The Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel and Waterfront Conference Center is a $46 million hotel and conference center complex. The property will offer 250 rooms and suites, 24,000 sq. ft. of meeting and function space, an Executive Learning Center and case study amphitheater; restaurant and lounge; concierge lounge; business center; indoor pool with sun deck; health club; gift shop and a 458 space parking garage.

A pre-opening sales office is open in the First Virginia Bank building at 355 Crawford Street, Suite 401, Portsmouth, Va., 23704. Cathy Grant is Director of Hotel Sales. The office hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; phone number is 757-673-3000; fax is 757-673-3030. A temporary internet site is located on the website of the Renaissance�s sister property, the Norfolk Waterside Marriott at www.norfolkmarriott.com.

The 15-story complex is located on a 3.5-acre riverfront site in Portsmouth�s historic district of Olde Towne. The hotel will be flagged as a Renaissance Hotel, the eighty-fourth property in the Renaissance Hotels and Resorts worldwide portfolio. The hotel/convention center project is a public-private partnership between Stormont-Trice Corp. of Atlanta, the City of Portsmouth, and the Portsmouth Industrial Development Authority.

Portsmouth, Va., is city of 100,000 people, located in the geographic center of the �Hampton Roads� region of southeastern Virginia, an area sometimes referred to as �Tidewater.� Portsmouth, like its English namesake, is a centuries-old community known for shipbuilding, seafaring and commerce. Portsmouth shares the Port of Norfolk with its sister city across the Elizabeth River. Historically significant and militarily strategic, Portsmouth traces its roots from a pre-Colonial trading outpost, to the American Revolution, through the Civil War and Reconstruction to the Great White Fleet, from both World Wars up to the present day as a modern, international commercial port and business center.