If politicians can’t agree on expanding the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan’s West Side, they may just move the project to Queens.

As city and state officials clash over the fate of the land surrounding the Javits Convention Center, the 61 acres at Willets Point eight miles to the east in Queens appear to be gaining new appeal as an alternative.

The city is finalizing its plans for a mixed-use development just next to Shea Stadium and trying to quell local opposition at the same time. The development — as laid out by Mayor Bloomberg in May — calls for the creation of a total of 5,500 units of housing, along with 1.8 million square feet of retail space and 500,000 square feet of office space. The city’s environmental review of the plan also mentions the possibility that “a convention center of up to 400,000 square feet would be developed.”

“If you look at cities around the world there is a trend toward having a satellite convention center,” the president of the Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, said. Mr. Yaro said he favors building a convention center in Queens that could act as a complement to, rather than a replacement of, the Javits Center.

Currently, Governor Spitzer is at loggerheads with Mr. Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn about the governor’s plans to sell a plot of land to the north of Javits. Mr. Spitzer said proceeds from the sale, which could net $900 million, would go toward other West Side development projects, but Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn have faulted the proposed sale for restricting expansion possibilities for the Javits Convention Center. Mr. Spitzer could look to Queens to address concerns from the tourism sector and the construction industry about the halt put to Javits expansion plans. Those plans, put in place by the Pataki administration, were tabled by Mr. Spitzer.

“I think that investment in the boroughs in these key industry sectors is probably the highest rate of return on public investment you are going to get,” the president of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, said.

Mr. Yaro said a convention center included as part of a larger Willets Point development plan makes sense on a number of levels. The area is close to two airports and has excellent transit and highway access to Midtown and its hotels.

A Queens convention center would not have to contend with the congestion and rapid business development that Javits now confronts on the West Side of Manhattan. And unlike the Sunnyside Rail Yards in Queens — another large undeveloped location that could house a convention center — Willets Point would be free of complicated issues surrounding air rights development and platform construction that is required when building over the rail yards.

“When Javits was the edge of nowhere you could get away with that but now as an extension of the central business district it is causing problems,” said Mr. Yaro. “You can imagine a piece of Javits used for those in-town functions; for fashion shows and high-end conferences. But the boat shows, and those larger trade and consumer shows, could be moved to this peripheral location.”

Plans for the Willets Point redevelopment were supposed to be ready for community review on February 25, but the city’s economic development corporation has postponed the start by at least two weeks.

The city had originally selected eight firms as finalists to bid for the plan, including Forest City Ratner Companies, the Related Companies, Vornado Realty Trust, and Muss Development. A number of hurdles exist for the development of Willets Point, notably the opposition from the local City Council member, Hiram Monserrate, who is pressing for more “affordable” housing and for additional compensation for businesses and individuals who would face evictions by the city’s use of eminent domain.

Last week, Mr. Monserrate held a meeting with the city’s deputy mayor for economic development, Robert Lieber, to try to resolve their differences. Mr. Monserrate said the city’s plan to designate 20% of the proposed housing units as “affordable” was unacceptably low.

“We need to do more to carve out protection for our citizens who own property and are not solely at the whim of the government,” Mr. Monserrate said in an interview.

Another critic of the plan has been Councilman John Liu. Mr. Liu is in favor of developing Willets Point but has been critical of how the EDC has communicated the details.

“What was a plan that should have been flushed out more and more as time went on actually has become more of a skeleton,” he said.

But Mr. Liu says that with 61 available acres, expanding the proposed size of the convention center would not be a problem. “I think that if the plan is to build a convention center at Willets Points there will be overwhelming if not universal enthusiasm,” he said.