Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed building a 3.8 million-square-foot convention center in Ozone Park, Queens. (Image via Arquitectonica)
Throughout the first year of his time as chief executive of the state of New York, Andrew Cuomo has made a name for himself. Even as he has not embraced New York City’s transit network or transportation policy overall, he has earned accolades because he Gets Things Done. In Albany, that is apparently an accomplishment in and of itself.
Yesterday, Cuomo gave his annual State of the State address. Transit was again absent. In fact, he mentioned the MTA twice and did not use the word “transit” at all. A centerpiece of his plan did concern a so-called Infrastructure Bank that would seemingly unify capital expenditures from the MTA, NY DOT and Port Authority. We’ll get to that later in the day. For now, I want to focus on another part of Cuomo’s plan: He wants to tear down the Javits Center and build a giant convention center near the Aquaduct race track in Ozone Park.
For Cuomo, the desire to build 3.8 million square feet convention center in the far reaches of the city is about job creating. “Let’s build the largest convention center in the nation, period,” he said. “It will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs, tens of thousand of jobs.”
Crain’s New York has more on this idea which has long enjoyed support from the RPA. Allow me to quote at length:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined his administration’s second year priorities Wednesday in a State of the State speech that described $25 billion worth of economic development initiatives. At the top of the list for New York City is a push to build the country’s largest convention center in Queens, raze the Jacob K. Javits Center and then redevelop the 14-acre waterfront property on the far West Side of Manhattan…
He said he wanted to replace the Javits Center with 3.8 million-square-foot exhibition center at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens through a joint-partnership the administration is developing with Genting Americas, the gaming corporation that operates the racino…
Razing the Javits Center would leave a multi-block, $4 billion piece of waterfront property that could be parceled off and developed alongside Related Cos.’ planned Hudson Yards project and the redevelopment of the Farley Post Office into Moynihan Station. The redevelopment of Javits will be modeled after Battery Park City, where the state leases the land to developers in exchange for a percentage of their rental income. Revenue for the state would increase along with apartment values.
Economic development officials had considered Willets Point, Queens, a possible site for a new convention center because of its proximity to La Guardia Airport and infrastructure improvements that are already underway. But the Aqueduct Racetrack site in Queens has clear advantages, too: Genting could build a convention center on one story and, perhaps most importantly, finance it.
If this doesn’t seem like a clear example of the left hand not knowing what the right is up to, I do not know what is. For the past few years, the state has spent $500 million on Javits Center renovations that are still ongoing. The city has spent $2.1 billion to send the 7 line to Hudson Yards, in no small part to improve access to the Javits Center. Now, the state is willing to spend another $4 billion on a plan that would plop 3.8 million square feet into a far-away neighborhood and include 3000 hotel rooms as well.
That, of course, brings us to another point: Transportation access to the Aquaduct area is subpar as it is. Only the A train to the Rockaways stops there, and those trains don’t run too frequently. It’s also a 45-minute ride from West 4th St. and a 50-minute ride from 42nd St. on the A train. While close to JFK, it’s not a convenient location for anyone else. A fifteen-minute walk from the Javits Center has conventioneers in Herald Square. A fifteen-minute subway ride from the Aquaduct stop drops a straphanger off at Broadway Junction in East New York.
According to Crain’s, the $4 billion plan would include some transportation upgrades and perhaps a connection to the JFK AirTrain. Again, though, I view these dollars as money poorly spent. If there is only a limited amount of money for transit, spending it on a subway to a station with very low traffic on a lightly-used part of the route only because the Governor wants to place a giant convention center there is the height of foolishness.
Meanwhile, as development at Hudson Yards has been non-existence, who will take on the task of redeveloping another 14 acres of land? The 7 line extension would truly be the subway to barely anywhere at all while the city would have a giant convention center in the no-man’s land of Southwestern Queens. This isn’t urban planning around the city’s core that addresses the city’s infrastructure needs. Rather, it’s pure folly instead.
As Haywood Sanders, a professor who specializes in urban economics, said to The Times, “The convention business is a disaster everywhere. Simply building more space gets you nothing more than a big empty building. And to put it in a place where there aren’t any hotels, restaurants or amenities next door is to doom it to serving only a local or metropolitan market.”
75 comments
As a Democrat who voted for Cuomo, I feel like he’s trolling us or something at this point. I mean, is he serious? How is NYC supposed to get back the money it’s blown on the Javits Convention Center? And I don’t suppose his wonderful plan has any improvements on actually getting people out to the boondocks for this new convention center. Considering he doesn’t care nor understand that not everybody can just drive everywhere, I don’t think so.
Hmm, reading this article and the comments, apt though they are, I still don’t quite feel convinced this is that big deal from a transportation planning standpoint, stupid as this might be for other reasons. Convention centers by definition are attractive to outsiders, not locals – if it’s near the airport, it’s as close as it can get to its customer base without being in Houston. I think a 15M walk to Javits is pretty optimistic, assuming you survive the traffic. And it’s at least as much of a problem that Javits is so far from JFK (except by limo) today. If ever they do get around to providing good transportation to the JFK area, it would be smarter to encourage Manhattan types to reverse commute than to encourage everyone to come to Manhattan with the daily commuters.
Of course, that’s all assuming this pipe dream ever becomes more than another sleepy convention center, which takes me to my next point: the real thing to shudder about here is that Cuomo has a Seth Pinsky-esque grasp on economic development period. If he thinks a bunch of crappy catering jobs are supposed to be a boost to the NYS economy, he’s full of it. Geographic centrality and cheaper hotels pretty much guarantee Vegas will win this battle, and there are plenty of perfectly good convention centers on the east coast too – ones that don’t require crossing the NYC metro area by ground if you aren’t flying in from Seattle or Houston.
Ack, sorry, I meant for this to be a reply to article, not to Alex C.
The same can be said for Chicago as well. It’s central location, and with O’Hare, make it a national convention location of choice.
Who wants to take a red-eye from LA to dumpy JFK, and then get shuttled over on bumpy roads to Aqueduct?
Yeah, I hear ya.
After thinking about it, I guess I managed to come up with two Javits uses that I’ve heard about that were of possible use to locals: college (probably mainly CUNY) entrance seminars and job fairs. I actually volunteered at one of the latter, and have to say it felt very dismal.
Javits Center redevelopment would help recoup investments made in the past to the current facility. Land leases and air rights sales could be 2 sources.
This only makes an angstrom of sense if part of the plan is to turn the Aqueduct area into Casinoland, and basically create some sort of legal gambling area out by JFK that would compete with Atlantic City. You’re not going to get people coming to a convention in New York to spend the majority of their time 20 miles away from midtown Manhattan unless you provide some form of entertainment in that area, and listening to the jets take off and land at the airport isn’t it.
The best equivalent I can think of is 40 years ago, when people in the Cleveland area thought building a new basketball arena for the Cavaliers halfway to Akron would get people from both cities to coming flocking to the doors. They were proven to be in error (And if there is no plan to do anything more than the racino out there right now, the only positive aspect I can think of is this would be such a white elephant that the desperate pols and crony capitalists who pushed it might actually back reviving of the Ozone Park rail link, in order to cut at least some time off the trip from Aqueduct to Manhattan.)
I agree that the convention center would make any sense at all only if QueensWay is revived as a LIRR route. Even then it would be much better to develop the racetrack as a new Battery Park City, not the reverse. The city needs transit-oriented, multi-nodal development. It makes no sense to squeeze everything into Manhattan below 60th St and leave vast areas of the city suburban sprawl.
Why would it make sense to turn the racetrack into a residential development? It’s right next to a casino and an airport, both terrible places to live next to. No developer would ever bother with such an endeavor.
Well, people already live around there, even if it’s fairly low-density. Well-sound proofed condos probably would mitigate the outside noise better than postwar single family homes.
Still, I doubt an indoor casino, probably (knowing
PinskyCuomo) buffered by a parking lot and other commercial development, is unlikely to be louder than the air and highway traffic that already predominates there. If it’s a crappy place to live, it’s because it’s so disconnected from everywhere else.It’s only marginally closer to JFK than Rochdale Village, a towers-in-the-park development next to a LIRR station to the east. The city is growing, and people need places to live. For better or worse that means residential highrises whenever there is available land. But it can even be mixed-use, with the southern half devoted to hotel, office, and retail.
That’s not necessarily true. Infill can be achieved with modest height increases in residential neighborhoods. Why six stories should ever be inappropriate as a height is beyond me in almost any neighborhood.
And to touch on a sacred cow, every parking lot represents a low-cost, high-return opportunity for infill, low-rise or not.
Let me ask you a question then. Which is more profitable, condos on the Manhattan waterfront or condos next to a casino in the middle of nowhere?
And on the flip side, how much real estates revenue is being lost by having Javits take up valuable land in Manhattan while being completely unprofitable?
You still think its not a good idea to swap the two?
There probably is a logic to encouraging some casino activity in NYC. Right now, all that slot machine money is being poured into NJ and CT or even Vegas. I suspect if we’re seeing our own citizens bussed to those places, we’re probably importing the social problems associated with gambling without even netting a return.
It’s probably not politically kosher to admit that, but it could be what’s motivating this sudden interest in casinos in NYC.
How much do convention centers kick into the economy anyway? Sometimes I wonder if the land where Javits currently sits really is being used for its highest and best use anyway. This idea really would have made more sense about 8-10 years ago. By the time the state got around to the redevelopment portion on the Javits site, the housing bubble would have ensured the state received top dollar for the sale and development, while developers would have built thousands of overpriced condos which would eventually hit the property markets or get converted into rentals, there by actually increasing the housing stock NOW rather than a vague hint of that occurring later on. Plus the new convention site could make use of that LIRR spur discussed in the previous post.
In reality, while this isn’t a terrible idea, there are probably dozens of BETTER ideas that the state could use its infrastructure money on than this one.
Whatever the flaws of building a massive convention center at Aqueduct (and they are legion), tearing down the Javits Center and replacing it with actual development is a great idea. The best would be to just sell the land, but even another project with Related/Vornado/etc. would be better than Javits.
Javits is 1 story! There HAS to be a better use of this land. Its as efficient as a cornfield in land usage.
The underlying question is: Why bother buinding convention centers when there is a glut of these centers *and* that the business is shrinking?
http://www.city-journal.org/20.....nters.html
We’d be better served by leaving the Javits center as-is, and develop the Aqueduct Racetrack land differently.
If this means finally rebuilding the IND Rockaway LIne from Ozone Park to Rego Park, I’m 100% for it.
The politicians hold all the cards here. If it will cost us $4 billion in investment to get a subway line that would only cost $300 million, then by God, let’s take it! What else will it be? A stupid High Line smack dab in the middle of Queens?
NYC is a world class city in every way – except in its convention center. Javits is anemic when compared to places like Orlando, Las Vegas, New Orleans, etc. There are many annual conventions that cannot even be held here because of its small size.
It’s also a terrible place to get into and out of for set up/pack out of large events. While sitting in a restaurant in West Harlem this week, I watched with curiosity as every few minutes a large boat would be trailered down Broadway. I didn’t realize until the next day that they were setting up the Boat Show at the Javits, and all of those boats – some wide loads – had to be towed down town on city streets all the way from the GWB in the middle of the night. While the Javits might be walking distance to Times Square, it’s not conveniently located if you’re an exhibitor.
That said, it is what it is, and it is where it is, and it will soon have much better mass transit access. If the 7 Train eventually goes through to Secaucus Transfer, and it should, then the Javits will at least have quick, easy and cheap access to Newark Airport. But one can’t help but wonder what the area would have been like if the plans to build the NY Jets stadium over the rail yards had gone forward. A football stadium would be an IDEAL annex to a small convention center, because that type of structure is only scheduled for use 10 or 12 days out of 365. The rest of the time, a well-designed, domed stadium would have supplemented the Javits PERFECTLY. We could have had the equivalent of a world class convention center right near midtown, a short distance from dozens of hotels, restaurants, theaters, etc., easy transportation links, a beautiful new edifice on the New York skyline … and one of our football teams wouldn’t still be playing in another State. (sigh)
“It’s also a terrible place to get into and out of for set up/pack out of large events.”
Building a huge convention center won’t solve that problem. Oversize loads to the Racetrack probably wouldn’t fit on the Moses-designed Belt Parkway (low bridges and “no trucks” restrictions). NYC is just not a city designed for the automobile, no matter how hard politicians try to make it so.
Let cities specialize – Orlando or Las Vegas for conventions, NYC for living.
Build it over Sunnyside Yards. The transportation infrastructure is there to support it, and it is closer to Manhattan.
I dunno, is it? I could see Astoria or Long Island City, particularly near Queensboro Plaza, making sense. With Sunnyside Yards, it is actually kind of disconnected from the subway system, and there isn’t much suitable space for platforms, and even if there were it would probably interfere with yard operations.
Sunnyside is surrounded by transit. Queens Plaza (E,M,R) is a block to the northwest. 36th St (M,R), 33rd St (7), and 39th Ave (N,Q) are all within a block of the yards to the north, south, and northwest.
There is also the proposed LIRR/MNRR Sunnyside station. NJ transit already uses the yard for midday storage so you might count them in as well.
The real issue is the cost of platforming over the yard. That might be prohibitive for a convention center. Otherwise, they would have extended Javits Center over the Hudson Yards in the 1990’s.
None of those stations are exactly pleasant or even safe walks from Sunnyside Yards, but I see your point. And I suppose it could tie in well with ESA. And could even bat a triple if ever it was possible to get the LIRR straight to at least one major airport (JFK?) – and maybe quadruple if it got linked to LaGuardia by subway.
Still, seems to me that if you’re going to go through all that trouble to make Sunnyside Yards habitable, you may as well build actual housing there. It’s higher-value and doesn’t have much potential disrupt the yards. And addresses a pressing concern: a housing shortage, which is much more critical than a convention center shortage.
The stretch from LIRR Long Island City station to 43rd St should be developed into high density low cost housing, office, and R&D space. The big box stores and strip malls along Northern could be reconfigured into mixed use retail and office or retail and rooftop park space. The only problem is that NIMBY from the east will complain about blocked views.
PS, the yards are good locations for middle schools to alleviate overcrowding in the local neighborhood, and High schools for the overcrowded western and northern Queens school districts.
Is “best convention center” really something we want to compete on? Can it, like hosting the Olympics (I know I know, irony given that we’re discussing the Far West Side) be something that most New Yorkers agree we don’t need at this point? I’m agnostic to the idea of conventions as economic development and job creation in the first place, but this arms race is really about having a central location, cheap land for massive open-air floor space, and nice weather. None of which New York has. Why would national conventioneers flock to a miniature faux-Vegas with crappy weather? ‘Cause they can also take an hour ride into Manhattan? If conventioneers come to New York they want to be in Manhattan itself. New York excels at being New York, not at being Orlando or Vegas.
That being said, if the State is just going to give away land and development rights to this private organization who will put up all the money for it, including paying for transit infrastructure upgrades to get the massive number of people between the airports, the convention center, and Manhattan, I’m all for it. And opening up the Javits parcel to high density mixed use development makes sense. But the State/City/MTA shouldn’t be putting up money for it.
Perhaps with this center, Prince (I meant Gov) Cuomo will do a back room, closed door deal to reactivate the Rockaway Branch. It is sorely needed. Can you imagine all those convention-goers on the circuitous A going through some pretty bad nabes? That is a recipe for disaster and yellow journalistic sensationalism.
You dont take suitcases on the A.
I take a suitecase on the A every time I fly into or out of JFK and use the AirTrain. I’ve never had anything approaching a problem.
The reactivation of the abandoned portion of the LIRR Rockaway would make this a lot more attractive. Maybe actually do the Queens super-express line between 63 St tunnel and 71 Ave to integrate with the Rockaway line.
I don’t have strong feelings about building a Queens casino or redeveloping the area near JFK one way or the other–many cities have found a lot of economic value to be leveraged from major airports, and it does make sense to think about whether the land near JFK is being used in a way befitting a major international airport.
However, this obsession with convention centers is just odd. Mid-size cities (anything in the midwest) and tourism-only cities (Orlando and Las Vegas) build convention centers because they don’t have much of a tourism draw otherwise, so it’s a way to get people begrudgingly to visit and leave a few dollars. New York, on the other hand, had 50 million visitors last year–if conventioneers want to come, fine, but we certainly shouldn’t be wasting land or public money on projects designed to coerce people to come to New York for ancillary reasons.
Not to mention that another reason convention centers in those other cities have found some success is because those are cheap places to hold events and put up a lot of people in hotel rooms (especially Las Vegas in this respect). New York will never be this, and for that reason will likely never be an especially popular convention destination.
” … tourism-only cities (Orlando and Las Vegas) build convention centers because they don’t have much of a tourism draw otherwise”
HUH ???
NYC may not have the climate draw of New Orleans in January, but it is a unique city with plenty of attractions as a global tourist destination already. Tourism creates jobs and brings in billions of dollars. More events = more attractions = more jobs = more revenues = more money for infrastructure … including subway expansion.
A person can argue the details – the location, the cost, the supporting infrastructure, etc. – and I’m sure the NIMBYs certainly will! But it seems to me that to argue that New York City should NOT have a world class convention center, is to argue against the best interests of the city itself.
It’s New York City. Why shouldn’t it have the best of everything? – including the best convention center.
Great! Let the developers build it and lose money on it, then. New York is not Orlando or Vegas; it’s not a one-industry city, and to the extent that it has a dominant industry, it’s not tourism. It can afford to not splurge on megaprojects like this.
As crazy as it may seme, I actually like the idea. You could keep Javits & add this new convention center on top of it to increase space wich we all can agree is nessessary.
As for the neighborhood, this can be an oppertunity to take an area that is a diamond in the rough & turn it into something great including housing, shopping, full fledged casinos with hotels & better transit service to both Manhattan & JFK. But as I posted yesterday, the political will needs to be there to make the plan work.
And the political will is there; If Andrew “Steamroller” Cuomo is on board, once major piece of support is taken care of. And I’m sure Queens politicians would jump at the chance to have something so important in Queens; the revenues to local businesses would skyrocket.
This would be a major stimulus.
As Chicago how well it’s convention center way outside of the downtown core has done for it. THey’ve been trying to find away to bring it back into the loop for 40 years. Now look at San Francisco which has a convention center right in the middle of a vibrant and growing museum and arts district.
Cuomo’s idea is SPECTACULARLY bad. Unbelievable.
Of course, the convention center, located next to JFK, would have a much better advantage over Midtown; with the IND Rockaway Line being reactivated, special excursion trains could run through the IND 63rd Street Line from the BMT Broadway and IND 6th Avenue Lines, run express to Roosevelt, and depending on how the 63rd Drive Connector is built, either run express or local to the IND Rockaway Extension. With rush hour skip-stop on the IND Rockaway Extension, the trip could take half the time of the A train, easily.
The advantage of the plan is that you can get trains both from the BMT and IND to Aqueduct, as opposed to merely the A Train. And with CBTC installed along the IND Queens Boulevard Line, the extra trains can be handled easily.
Uh, McCormick Place is still in downtown Chicago – it’s only a mile down Lake Shore Drive from the “core” area, and their last expansion was in 2007.
yeah, I agree. I’ve been there, it’s pretty easy to reach by bus and Metra and an appropriate use for that area. Many convention centers aren’t terribly accessible to the surrounding area for pedestrians and part of that is due to the sheer size of these things. San Diego’s is an exception but it also isnt that large either.
This was linked from Streetsblog and addresses some of the concerns raised here.
Re Javits:
Something about transit:
Doesn’t really elaborate. 😐
One of my favorite cities to visit is Chicago. But when you have to schlep to McCormick Place for a convention, it puts a drag on the trip. However, at least McCormick Place is relatively near downtown if somewhat disconnected. If it were out by O’Hare, it would completely negate any benefit of being in Chicago. The same would be true for a convention center out by JFK. No one says, “Let’s go to one of the greatest cities in the world but not be close enough to the action to easily experience it.” Cities like New Orleans, Las Vegas and San Francisco have convention centers near their biggest assets and are successful. Cuomo should take note of that to avoid this boondoggle of an idea.
It doesn’t sound like the tax payer is on the hook for $4B for this Aqueduct site. Reports have mentioned grants of state and Port Authority land to the Genting company near Aqueduct worth maybe a couple tens of millions. The key thing to watch is whether the state assumes any of the cost or risk of building the Aqueduct convention center. Will Genting get loan guarantees etc? If the state isn’t on the hook for actual cash, and can get billions for the Javits site — near the soon to be opened 7 extension — this could be a good deal for tax payers and the future of the West Side of Manhattan.
How long until the Islanders latch on to this plan and demand a rink be built as part of this insane project?
I think this a really bad idea. For New York in general and especially for conventions.
First, unless the private developer will be building housing and other facilities for City residents, this will wind up being just a convention center with some hotels. To make this site work for any purpose, more transit will be needed. Unless the developer contributes a large amount of money, these improvements could wind being as much of a white elephant as the Detroit people mover and other boondoggle transit projects.
Second, JFK, while it is the biggest airport in the NYC area, still only accounts for less than 50% of the passengers of the two major airports. Javits, while not in an ideal location for any of the airports is at least a reasonable trip for all three. Ozone park, would be brutal for those flying into EWR and LGA.
Third, the only locals who would benefit from this are those who live in Brooklyn near the A/C, that area of Queens, and Long Island. Those from the NY suburbs, Manhattan, Northern Queens, the Bronx, and New Jersey would have to travel all the way across the city adding many rides to the A/C or a lot of road traffic to get out there, tying up roads all over NYC.
Finally, Javits is relatively close to Penn Station, for those living in the Northeast outside the NY metro area.
So put a full-sized convention center at Secaucus transit center. Tons of cheap land available. Freeways nearby with none of the size/capacity issues of NY parkways and bridges. Quick and frequent train service to both Penn Station and Newark airport. JFK-Secaucus would require three trains (Airtrain, LIRR, NJT) but each is quick and frequent.
Of course, the tax revenue would not go (directly) to NY city or state. But the proceeds from selling off Javits would.
Thank you Ben for calling out this boondoggle for what it is!
Why build a convention center out in an industrial/low-income residential area with poor transportation to the heart of the city?
I have to go to Las Vegas for a trade show once a year (and I HATE Las Vegas), but at least all of the attractions & restaurants are easily accessible since the convention center is right on the strip. I can’t imagine N.Y. will be very successful in luring big trade shows to a center that attendees aren’t going to find in a desireable location.
Regarding Javits/Hudson Yards: hasn’t anyone thougth of forcing the developers to pay into a fund that can be dedicated to opening up the 10th Avenue/41st St. station on the 7-train?
To a certain extent, conventions are an excuse for a semi-vacation. Doctors have conventions in Hawaii in the winter all the time. That’s not because the Honolulu airport is so convenient to the convention center.
The Javits Center is in the New York City that tourists want to visit. You can get your company to pay for a Times Square hotel. You can go out to a Broadway show at night. And so on.
If the convention is in Ozone Park and you can only get your company to pay for a hotel in Ozone Park, why go to the convention? You might as well go to the regional convention in, say, Knoxville instead.
This is simply another Pie-In-The-Sky plan that is designed to fail. Look what is going on with Albany and their plans for a Convention Center. They are not exactly moving at lightening speed (Even Cuomo did not mention it). They could not even get a new facility in Nassau for the Islanders. The only way I could see it working is if they decided to have a one stop train option from the Convention Center/JFK to lower Manhattan. There are only two problems with this: NIMBY opposition and the price tag involved (See the Fulton St Transportation Center as an example of this).
Did anyone commenting here actually read the RPA report?
http://www.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Unconventional.pdf
RPA has called for replacing the Javits center with new facilities — a world-class trade-show and exposition center in Queens and a smaller conference center in the future Moynihan Station in Manhattan to host professional meetings that have long bypassed New York.
So, you move the large trade shows out of town while attempting to retain the more conventional conventions in Manhattan. It’s not an either/or.
Yes. I noted that in the post. It would then create another 15 acres of land along 11th Ave. in the 30s to be developed, effectively making Hudson Yards a 48-acre project instead of a 33-acre one. Since Related can’t line up financing or a tenant to anchor even one building on the 33-acre site, how does the city expect to find someone — or multiple someones — willing to build on even more empty space over there?
Maybe they could put the tenements back!
Why would the city care whether the land gets built right now or not? Currently the operation of the Javits Center provides value “X” to the city. Can you sell it for Y>X, with Y preferably in hard cash? Then do it and who cares what the new owner does with it.
Uh, think again. The first building by Related is anchored by Coach and scheduled to begin construction soon.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....-june.html
Once again, the purpose is to develop the Far West Side as a viable mix-used neighborhood. Real estate might be down at the moment, but it doesn’t mean it will remain down. The state stands to gain a ton of money from this. Much, much more than the $500 million or whatever they waste renovating Javits.
Of course, news that’s more recent than early November is less optimistic. And one building doesn’t equate with filling 48 acres in a bad market at a time when New York is adding office space far faster than anyone is willing to pay for it.
And in the end the Related project is completely irrelevant to this project, because this lot is going to be residential, not commercial.
They are having trouble attracting commercial developments, which is in bad shape city-wide. Residential? That’s been going at a brisk pace on the Far West Side throughout the last decade. Isn’t that’s why you keep advocating for a stop at 42nd & 11th?
This is valuable, valuable land. There will be a new subway station not far away, and developers’ interest will be high. Having a convention center there is plainly a waste of space, so Cuomo is doing a smart thing by fixing that.
So how did you guys end up with this guy, anyway?
Remember his opponent?
Actually, no. But if Cuomo’s the good guy, I’d hate to see the bad.
Yes. Yes, you would.
His name was Carl Paladino and he was a delusional, vicious, authoritarian, mean-spirited, homophobic lunatic.
In all fairness, on some things Cuomo isn’t even that bad. But he’d probably be called a conservative if the the Arkham Asylum escapees in the Tea Party didn’t appropriate that term to describe themselves.
He was next in line in the state party. Also, the Obama administration liked him and pushed for him behind the scenes, since he’d make a decent candidate in ’16.
I was just responding to the people rhetorically asking “who would want to go to a convention in Queens?” Since that’s not really the question they should be asking, as the core convention business would still be in Manhattan (all you need are some meeting space, some ballrooms, hotel rooms attached, etc.) – the more relevant question would be to ask who wants to go to the boat show in Queens? Or who wants to go to the auto show in Queens?
Point being, the convention market is segmented, and you don’t need to accommodate all users under one roof.
But there are some big meetings. For four or five years back in the dot com days, the Gartner Group and Avanstar ran an annual series of Internet and Electronic Commerce meetings at Javits that I used to come up for. They didn’t fill the possible exhibition space in Javits, but they were too big for any of the hotels. I don’t see that sort of thing migrating out to South Ozone Park.
The Boat Show and Auto Show aren’t that big, btw. Before Javits they were held in that weird building at Columbus Circle. And maybe they’d fit in the 9th Ave facing part of Moynihan, if that’s also planned to be conference space. For that matter, I suspect that the IEC shows I used to come up for would fit there, too.
Maybe there’s no real need for Javits. It’s too small for the really large events and too big for the bread and butter stuff. Just replace it with space in Moynihan sized to accommodate the bulk of the shows which can’t fit in a single hotel and level it.
The Auto Show just fits in the Javits – and pretty much uses every inch, spilling out into its frontage on 11th. But the Boat Show could be a lot bigger – with more and bigger boats – if it were held in a larger convention center. Large boats can’t even get into the Javits. The Coliseum at Columbus Circle had the same limitations.
People are missing the point – this isn’t about the convention center.
Its about gaining a GIGANTIC waterfront property that the state can collect rent on in an area with some of the most expensive rent in the city.
It just so happens that they have a partner in Genting that is willing to help them with building another convention center in the boondocks. But make no mistake, convention centers are not that profitable and as such not important, and Cuomo recognizes that there’s much more $$$$ to be had with building a new Battery Park City in valuable land.
Aqueduct is a poor out of the way location for a convention center. The area around Citifield (replacing the current ground level only parking with multilevel garages) would be the ideal location for a world class convention center.
Highway access (including for trucks) is excellent with the Grand Central, Van Wyck, and Whitesone expressway bordering the site. Minutes away you have the Whitesone Bridge with giving access to the Bronx and points north, the LIE and the BQE and Jackie Robinson Parkways. LaGuadia is 2 minutes away, and Kennedy a managable trip.
With the completion of ESA, the Port Washingon line will have increased express service to both Penn Station and Grand Central.
Continuing the airtrain up the van wyck to laguadia (via a reverse move at Jamaica) would allow for fast one seat access to both airports as well as all LIRR lines (as well as finally giving Laguadia reall mass transit).
The 7 train should be lowered to ground level or below between the GCP and the Flushing River with the Covention Center built over it running between Citifield and the Tennis Center. (The re-alignment of or demapping of Roosevelt Avenue in that areas would need to be explored). The possibility of doming either or both Citifield and Ash Stadium could give many more options.
As part of the redevelopement of that whole area (underway for 20+ years) hotels and the like should be built. Flushing should be extended over the river to merge with the new area giving access to all that Flushing has.
This could be a real redevelopement that benefits all and gives NY a real world class facility. That the land is government owned makes the project doable.
The idea is that for this proposal, there’s already a developer for the convention center in place, Genting America, who wants to add the convention center to their racino complex that just opened up. Aqueduct may be out-of-the-way, but it is close to the airport, and the space there is cheap, and there’s someone out there who actually wants to help build it.
Flushing is a bustling commercial neighborhood, but not exactly a place that would attract convention goers like Manhattan is. In fact, the racino is probably more tourist-friendly than Flushing. And traffic is just as bad even with all the highways leading up to it. So your arguments against the Aqueduct apply to Willets Point just the same.
Quite frankly, having convention center take up valuable land in an expensive city like NY is simply not a good idea, whether its a world-class facility or not.
Also note:
Flushing Meadow Park with tennis, bicycling, a small golf course, a nearyby water front prominad, a fishing pier, a zoo, and boating oppurtunities (to say nothing of catching a ball game or the US open) could truly allow this be a real tourist destination. Queens China Town’s proximity is an additional major plus.
Another good reason why I abstained from my vote for governor last year.
While the author like all the politicians and developers see ozone park queens as a no man’s land, there are tens of thousands of residents who call this place home. True, traffic and access to the area are over crowded . Therefore , the already overtaxed infrastructure would be destroyed by more traffic. The question concerns the quality of life for the voters and taxpayers who call the area home. It seems that they do not figure into the equation. Rather, the underlying scheme seems to be for developers to get their hands on prime waterfront property in Manhattan to be targeted for the elite. The rest of the poor middle and working class residents of the so-called “no-man’s land” of Ozone Park and surrounding areas I gather are expendable. What a sad state of affairs.
This idea aside from not being terrible practical, reeks of corruption at its very core. Genting paid money right over the table to NYRA and the State to have New York City Off Track Betting eliminated, probably to lessen the competition for their desired projects. Suffolk and Nassau Off Track Betting are the next to go, and the jobs that have been lost will not be replaced by these grand ideas. As it is now the Resorts jobs are barely paying a living wage for someone living in this city, and the maid, busboy and janitor jobs this wonderful plan will create aren’t going to be much better. And that is if people are lucky enough to know somebody to even get one of those positions.
As for the location issue, no disrespect to those who live out there, but people from the Bronx and Manhattan are probably not going to go out there for much of anything, and tourists stick Bloomberg’s mall style Manhattan now, so going out to Queens might not appeal to them. Bad thing is if the destination does become popular residents out there can then look forward to being run out of area.
The Javits location is also meaningless to anyone who isn’t rich, since any housing they build there will not be affordable. Especially if they work for 9 dollars an hour at the Genting Casino….
[…] center stage, transit advocates are leery. As I noted last week, transit access to Ozone Park is rather sparse, and building a convention center at the Aquaduct site would raise significant transportation […]
[…] Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to build a convention center in Ozone Park, Queens residents were gearing up to square off over a decommissioned bit of former LIRR tracks. […]