Javits Will Expand Even Without Olympics
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 7/18/2005
New York—New York's loss of the 2012 Olympics bid shouldn't have any effect on the planned expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, other than perhaps opening up some dates for shows in the summer of that year.
Some $350 million in state funding was approved last December for expansion of the center, which would have been used for tae kwon do and judo competitions, had New York won the bid rather than London.
Tim McGuinness, vice president of sales and convention center expansion for the city's convention and visitors bureau NYC & Co., said renderings will soon be available for the $1.4 billion expansion, which will add 340,000 square feet of exhibit space and 265,000 sq. ft. of meeting room space. Groundbreaking is slated for the first quarter of next year.
Besides extra exhibit space and meeting rooms, the expansion calls for a 1,500-room, 50-story headquarters hotel at 11th Avenue and West 42nd Street, a 6,000-seat ballroom and an expanded marshaling area on two levels between 33rd and 34th streets.
Backers of a larger convention center had pitched the expansion as part of the $6.5 billion development of a West Side convention corridor. One feature of the corridor, a $2.2 billion New York Sports & Convention Center, fell victim to political wrangling. But another, a $2 billion expansion of the No. 7 subway, remains under discussion.
"We're keeping our fingers crossed. Politicians and the general pubic realize it's been needed for the past 10 to 15 years," McGuinness said, adding that the sports stadium would have sped up the process of extending the subway line to the notoriously difficult-to-reach Javits.
After plans fell through for the sports center — which would have provided 200,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space in addition to a home for the New York Jets football team — veteran New York Sen. Charles Schumer called for the city to move swiftly on the subway extension and Javits expansion. He also advocated adding another million square feet to the Javits, making it the country's largest convention center.
McGuinness said there's no question the additional space could be filled. The question, he said, is who would pay to expand the center to 3 million sq. ft.
