In 2010, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans celebrates a quarter of a century of hosting meetings, conventions, trade shows and other events. What better way to celebrate a Silver milestone than with Diamonds? Approximately  231,000 square feet of the building’s 1.1 million square feet received the famous “Diamond Polishing Treatment,” from Advanced Floor Products in its RetroPlate Concrete Polishing System. The system’s high-gloss finish gives floors the appearance of polished marble and a highly abrasion resistant, dust-proof surface with increased impact resistance. In addition to being more aesthetically pleasing, the polished floors will reduce the Convention Center’s maintenance costs: according to Advanced Floor Products, creators of the RetroPlate Concrete Polishing System. The treatment gets its Diamond name with an initial buffing with heavy-grit diamonds to remove a thin slice of the floor surface and eliminate any existing finishes, then  metal bond diamonds to grind the floor to a smooth surface with increasingly finer diamond pads. A “densifier” is applied to harden the concrete, increasing overall strength and resistance. The final step in the process is to buff the floor surface to the desired sheen. The entire process took ten days per exhibit hall. Next year, the Convention Center plans to tackle the remaining 769,000 square feet of concrete floors. By 2011, all twelve halls in the facility, totaling 1.1 million square feet will be polished to a sparkling sheen. The entire system is  “a lot more sophisticated than polishing your kitchen floors with ‘Mop-N-Glo’,” said Bryan Hayden, Vice President of Operations, Morial Convention Center.