Javits Expansion Is Dead in the Water

More than three years, two governors and a projected $1.8 billion later, the highly anticipated proposed expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of New York is officially off the table, according to Patrick Foye, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., which oversaw the project.

“It's not a prudent use of taxpayer dollars,” Foye said.

The expansion would have added 340,000 square feet of exhibit space and 235,000 sq. ft. of meeting space to the existing total of 760,000 sq. ft.

Instead, the funding will remain in place, but probably be used for renovations to the center, according to Foye.

“It's in pretty bad shape,” he said. Suspended from the ceiling are what many have called “diapers”: big, plastic sheets that collect rainwater when it flows through the leaky roof and funnel it down into large buckets. “It's an embarrassment to the city and the state,” Foye added.

Between 12 and 15 proposals for renovations have been under review for the past few months, he said, though no replacement plan has been chosen yet.

Foye announced the demise of the original proposed expansion late last month at a hearing called by New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky on the status of the West Side Manhattan redevelopment plan, of which Javits was a part.

“The most troubling part of the hearing was whether or not there was another (plan) of what else there is to do, and it looks like there isn't,” Brodsky said. “I think that's a mistake.”

Without an expansion, New York likely will be forced to compete head-to-head with smaller cities for tradeshow business in the lucrative Northeast corridor. The Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia recently broke ground on a project that will add 260,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space, giving it a total of 700,000 sq. ft, as well as 72,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

The two-year-old Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, with 516,000 sq. ft. of exhibit space, and the Washington Convention Center, with 725,000 sq. ft., also pose threats.

The need for more space has been repeatedly confirmed by long-time Javits tradeshow customers, such as The New York Intl. Auto Show, which typically draws crowds of up to 1 million people, and Reed Exhibitions, with shows such as Interphex, Intl. Vision Expo East and BookExpo America .

Ken McAvoy, senior vice president of operations for Reed Exhibitions, said, “(At Javits), we would like to see more meeting space and exhibition space conducive to satisfying our customers, including ease of move-in and move-out, limiting the number of columns in exhibition space, etc.”

Nick Crispe, spokesman for the Greater New York Auto Dealers Assn, which runs the auto show, echoed McAvoy's sentiments. “We really just want to have the best convention center for the needs of the city,” he said.

The now-dead expansion proposal, developed by then-Gov. George Pataki and then-Empire State Development Corp. Chairman Charles Gargano, took 10 years to reach the point where it was approved in December 2004.

Slated to break ground shortly thereafter, the original expansion plan was plagued by frequent problems and delays:

• The location of a new 1,500-room headquarters hotel was switched from property that had to be purchased at 11th Avenue and 42nd Street, to a state-owned park across 11th, between 35th and 36th streets.
• Plans for marshaling space changed from a three-level structure on the south side of the center between 33rd and 34th streets, to what would have been a six-level structure on the north side between 39th and 40th streets.
• The cost of the project ballooned from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion, and the completion date was moved back repeatedly, eventually to 2010.
• When Eliot Spitzer was elected governor in November 2006, the proposal lost its biggest fan in Albany, former Gov. Pataki, and gained one of its biggest opponents, Spitzer.

More recently, as the cost of the project spiraled out of control, the Hotel Assn. of New York City, which was already paying a $1.50 per-key, per-night hotel tax, balked at city and state officials' request to consider tripling the amount.

For now, Javits will get, at best, a face lift and a much smaller-scale expansion, according to Foye. In the meantime, he said, he's not concerned about competition from other East Coast cities.

“One thing that we have that no one else does is that Javits is located in the city of New York,” he said.