From a distance -- even a short one, say just across Butler Road in Orenco Station -- it's just a crane. But the

is more than just another metal arm in an already populated Hillsboro skyline. It's the world's largest mobile crane, and it's helping to build one of the world's largest development centers --

.

paid $5 million to rent the crane, which can move 2,600 tons without the slightest hint of trouble. The blue crane came to Hillsboro from Kennewick, Wash., in pieces loaded on 220 semi-trucks. Workers spent four weeks reassembling the parts into the 460-foot boom. With attached jibs, the crane can stretch up to 700 feet.

Even inert, as it was Tuesday afternoon, the LTL-2600 is a pie-in-the-sky promise that jobs are coming.

Though Intel is ultimately in the business of small -- in the world of semiconductors, tinier is better -- the company is no stranger to huge. The construction project, which kicked off in February and ends in 2013, is one of the largest in Oregon's history. About 45,000 tons of steel and rebar are going into the new plant. D1X and its support buildings will be eight times larger than the biggest Walmart.

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