? Observatory is 13 feet 6 inches by 24 feet 8 inches (242-square-foot standing area) and 420 feet high (42 stories).

? 360-degree panoramic views. On a clear day, visibility will be 100 miles in all directions.

? Expected to bring 100,000 visitors a year to the region beginning March 2007.

? Only observatory-bridge in North America; one of only three such bridges in the world (the other two are in Thailand and Slovakia).

? Part of a two-in-one destination together with historic Fort Knox.

? An elevator holding up to eight passengers will carry visitors from the base of the western pylon to the top of the observatory.

? In collaboration with Maine DOT and Cianbro-Reed & Reed LLC, Figg is engineer of record for the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay and 50 percent engineer of record for the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston.

? First cable-stay bridge in Maine.

? Only the second bridge in the world to use Figg’s patented cradle stay system, which provides a continuous strand of stainless steel sheathing from the bridge deck, through the cradle on the pylon and back down to the bridge deck.

? For the first time in bridge design, an innovative nitrogen gas protection and monitoring system will be used to provide an enclosed environment of pressurized inert gas around each cable stay, eliminating the effects of moisture or other potentially corrosive elements.

? The 288 pilings that support the Verona Island tower add up to a total length of 3.9 miles.

? Three hundred thirty-one miles of epoxy-coated strand make up the cable (roughly the distance from Portland to Fort Knox).

? Verona foundation is 3,500 cubic yards. Prospect foundation is 2,500 cubic yards. The entire bridge has 31,000 cubic yards of concrete.

? There is enough concrete in the foundations to fill a football field 3.5 feet high (not including end zones) and enough concrete in the entire bridge to fill a football field 19 feet high.

? Total weight of the reinforcing steel rods in the bridge piers and towers is 1.02 million pounds.

? Three hundred seventy-three thousand hours of labor contracted by Cianbro-Reed & Reed LLC.

? Total bridge weight is about 10,500 African elephants (roughly 126 million pounds).

? Total bridge length is 2,120 feet.

? Three hundred forty thousand tons of rock were blasted from the Prospect side.

? $846,000 was the cost of the original Waldo-Hancock Bridge, built in 1931.

? $85 million is the cost of the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory.

SOURCE: Maine Department of Transportation