As a teenager growing up near DC's Griffith Stadium, Abe Pollin followed the ups and downs of the Washington Senators. Now Pollin gets to bring his own teams--the basketball Wizards and the Capitals ice-hockey team--downtown when his MCI Center opens December 2.

For this self-confessed sports nut who made his fortune in construction and has been active in civic work in and around DC, the move from US Airways Arena--which Pollin built 25 years ago--to Seventh and F streets, Northwest, seems almost a summing up of his life.

Abe Pollin was born in 1923 in Philadelphia to Ukrainian immigrants. He moved here with his family when he was eight. Unable to speak English, his father worked as a day laborer before becoming a plumbing-and-heating contractor.

"My father never went to school a day in his life but built his company up to the largest in the Washington area," Pollin says. "He was on a first-name basis with all his employees. You didn't need contracts with him. His word was his bond."

Abe Pollin began working part-time for his father when he was 15. After graduating from George Washington University in 1945, he spent another dozen years in his father's business before opening his own construction firm.

His first big project was Robert Towers, near the Pentagon, named for his son. His last, a luxury apartment building in Chevy Chase, he named for his wife: the Irene.

Now married 52 years and living in Bethesda, Abe and Irene Pollin have seen their share of tragedy. They lost a one-year-old son in 1952 and a 16-year-old daughter 11 years later--both to congenital heart disease. Irene Pollin later became a psychotherapist and has pioneered a program to help others through grief and crises.

Pollin serves on scores of nonprofit boards and has raised lots of money for such causes as the Kennedy Center and United Jewish Appeal. Through the I Have a Dream Foundation, he and his partner, Mel Cohen, have guaranteed college education for 59 Prince George's County kids.

Honors include a Washingtonian of the Year award from The Washingtonian and the Golden Links Award from the Board of Trade for linking the region through sports and entertainment. Like his father, he has won the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund.

Not surprisingly, sports have been a longtime passion. "I used to play a lot of baseball, basketball, and football, but I never was good enough to amount to anything," he says. Now he walks and plays regular tennis: "I have no backhand. I fake it."

The Pollins have two grown sons--Robert, an economics professor at the University of California-Riverside, and Jim, who lives in Miami and heads a cruise company--as well as two granddaughters.

In his office at US Airways Arena, Abe Pollin talked about what he's learned.

You obviously have an edifice complex. What's the joy of building?

It's the joy of creation. You start with nothing--just a piece of ground, just plain dirt. You plan a project for years, and then you watch it come to life and take shape.

Just yesterday I went down to MCI Center and saw the color seatings, which we had picked out two years ago. I saw lights turn on for the first time. I got a big kick out of walking into the bathrooms and seeing the toilets and wash-basin fixtures installed.

No other endeavor gives me such pleasure. After World War II, I built the first houses in Washington under the GI Bill. When I saw those former soldiers move into their own homes with big backyards for their kids, I just "kvelt"--had so much personal satisfaction. More than just making money, it was knowing that I had created a place for those GI families to call home.

Doctors, lawyers, accountants--they're all important. But in only a few professions do you get to see results so clearly years after a project has been launched.

What's the toughest part of construction?

Breaking ground. No doubt about it. Before you break ground, you must get the financing and all the permits required. Here we have to cope not only with the District but also with the federal bureaucracy. For MCI Center we had to deal with the Fine Arts Commission, the National Planning Commission, and other groups found only here. That was very, very tough to get done.

We broke ground two years ago, on October 18, and more trouble came immediately. We hit bad soil and eventually had to move thousands of truckloads of contaminated soil to Detroit.

And, remember, this is a gigantic endeavor. Right before MCI Center opens, we'll have some 1,000 men working there daily. If one guy holds up another, before long everything gets screwed up.

Happily, I have a fantastic builder in Jim Clark, who built the Capital Centre for me 25 years ago. And I have a fabulous personal staff. Besides, I go there every day to inspect and poke around. And I know a little about construction myself.

What are some lessons on construction?

Stay flexible. If one thing doesn't work, find another way to get it done.

For instance, we have black marble tops for our private Center suites. They're made in China. The boat they were on was supposed to come here through the Panama Canal. But it got too late for that. So we had to arrange for that boat to dock in California and transfer all that marble onto trucks to get it here in time.

Second, have a tight schedule and, by God, stick to it. Six months ago the guys told me that we couldn't possibly open until next spring. I said, "No way. That's unacceptable. We're going to open December 2."

Nobody believed me then. Now they do.

Did building MCI Center differ from building the Cap Centre?

Yes, in lots of ways. The Capital Centre--now called the US Airways Arena--is 300,000 square feet. MCI Center's around a million, and it has features found in no other building in the world. Its Discovery Store spans three levels, 25,000 square feet in all, and itself costs some $20 million.

It'll be the most fantastic store of its kind anywhere. The lower level will focus on the ocean and water. The middle level features earth. And the top level, space. It'll have lots of interactive displays.

MCI Center also features the MCI National Sports Gallery, another 25,000 square feet on two levels, which contains probably the best sports memorabilia in the world--on every sport.

This, too, will have interactive stuff galore. A baseball fan can peer into the Yankee dugout and see films of Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth there, then enter a cage and swing a bat to a computer-thrown pitch.

Or a fan can pitch. The computer tells that the game's in the bottom of the ninth inning, score tied, 3Ð2 count, et cetera. Your pitch determines whether your team wins or loses.

Then we're creating the Discovery Theater, with a new "Destination Washington" film made for us. There in a small theater, 80 or 85 people can learn about Washington highlights before heading out to see them.

Our Velocity Restaurant overlooks the Wizards' practice court. The sports bar has a glass floor and glass walls. Anyone sitting and having a drink in the bar can watch the Wizards work out.