Javits Expansion: N.Y. Project's Details Change

By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 2/13/2006

If New York officials had stuck to their original timeline for expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, environmental and public reviews would have wrapped up in 2004 and construction would have kicked off in 2005.

Instead, more than a year after being approved by state legislators, the project is still in the design stage. Instead of $1.4 billion, it will now cost $1.7 billion. And instead of being completed in 2008 or 2009, officials have now pushed the date back to 2010.

Such is the nature of a large-scale public project in a major metropolitan city. The Javits, however, has turned out to be more complicated than most venue expansions. For a time, it was part of New York's bid to draw the 2012 Summer Olympics. It also was linked to an adjacent $2.2 billion sports stadium with exhibit space. The sports stadium was eventually scrapped, and the city lost its bid to host the Olympics.

In the meantime, there's been much discussion about major facets of the project. A difference of opinion with Charles Gargano, chairman and commissioner of Empire State Development, over the location of a headquarters hotel and marshaling yard led to Robert Boyle's ouster as longtime chairman of the New York Convention Center Operating Corp., manager of the Javits.

Now, instead of putting the 1,500-room headquarters hotel on property that needed to be purchased at 11th Avenue and 42nd Street, it will be built on the site of a state-owned park across 11th, between 35th and 36th streets.

And instead of including a three-level marshaling yard on the south side of the center between 33rd and 34th streets, the project now calls for a six-level marshaling yard on the north side, between 39th and 40th streets. Planners bill the new marshaling yard as being able to handle loading, unloading and parking of 300 trucks at different levels of the convention center.

Boyle had argued, during a Dec. 14 state Assembly committee hearing, that the new marshaling plan is unsuitable, both for security and operational reasons. He said boxes in every truck lining up to unload would have to be inspected, adding greatly to move-in times. And, he added, trucks would have difficulty making their way down a five-story corkscrew tunnel.

"We will lose most of the advantage of our expansion and we will seriously impact our profitability," he warned.

In addition, he said building the hotel on 42nd Street would allow show attendees to walk directly from the venue instead of having to cross 11th Avenue via an underground tunnel.

Boyle also argued that the opinions of Javits management and users should be valued during the expansion process. "The Javits expansion is an evolving project, and this is the time to uncover program and design flaws, and to find solutions to problems before they are cast in concrete," said Boyle, who remains on the center's operating board.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer has now joined the chorus, calling on Gargano to go back to the drawing board and come up with a larger expansion plan.

Show managers haven't seen the new plans, but will soon, said Tim McGuinness, vice president of sales and convention center expansion for the city's convention and visitors bureau NYC & Co.

The city is also exploring an expansion of the nearby UnConvention Center at 54th Street and 12th Avenue. Over the next two months it will send RFPs to prospective developers to more than double its existing 175,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space.

"We want to develop it into a Class A-type convention facility," McGuinness said.

In the meantime, pressure is building to get the Javits expansion off the ground. "This has been a long time coming. There's pressure in New York City to get more meeting and convention space," McGuinness said. "What happens for us in the city here is, we turn away more business than we can take in. The faster they can build the space and get it going, the better."

The new Javits operating chairman, Joseph Spinnato, president of the Hotel Assn. of New York City, has said he's ready to "move on" with the project.

When it opened in 1986, the Javits was the country's fourth-largest convention center, according to Tradeshow Week research. With 814,400 sq. ft. of exhibit space, including a 54,400 sq. ft. temporary pavilion slated for demolition, and 100 meeting rooms on four levels, it is now smaller than centers in cities like Louisville, Ky., and Rosemont.

One thing that hasn't changed for the expansion during the various design iterations is the 340,000 sq. ft. of proposed additional exhibit space. Once the expansion is completed, the center will offer 1.3 million sq. ft. of exhibit space. But moving the marshaling yard to the north side would force a 20-percent reduction in the 235,000 sq. ft. of proposed meeting space.

The project's slow start, as well as its climbing budget, were also addressed during the December committee meeting. Boyle said initial budget figures were conceived back in 2002, based on 4-year-old schematic drawings.

He acknowledged that six months were lost between December 2004, when the state Legislature approved the project's funding, and May 2005. But he told committee members that he had "some fear of rushing into projects of this size without appropriate study."

Boyle reminded committee members that "fast tracking" the center's original construction made it very expensive.

During the hearing Gargano noted that a southern expansion would create more space over the long term. Trying to buy or condemn the 42nd Street property for the hotel would be costly, he said.

He told committee members that the Javits operating corporation's architectural team provided "a sketchy concept; without solid details, planning, engineering or pricing considerations."

Javits Development hired an engineering team to survey the convention center, then brought in Tishman Construction and architect Richard Roberts, who designed London's Millennium Dome.

Gargano called the task of providing contiguous exhibit space, solving the marshaling yard problem and building a convention center hotel — all without disturbing existing business — "a tall order."

While some have suggested they ask the state for more money, others advise that the project be scaled back. But Gargano said, "Neither one of these options, in my opinion, makes sense."