Powerful Voice in Javits Talks May Push To Scrap Pataki Plan

In plotting the long-awaited expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the Spitzer administration is increasingly finding itself torn between the conflicting interests of the city, the hotel industry, and users of the facility amid frustration over the costs.This week, state officials are scheduled to meet with an influential group of convention facility users and exposition management firms that could have a heavy impact on the state’s course of action. At the start of the year, the same group and others involved with the project successfully urged Governor Spitzer to for the most part scrap the Pataki administration’s $1.8 billion plan for the facility, pledging a larger, more user friendly convention center.The Spitzer administration, which inherited an approved and largely funded plan from the Pataki administration, has said the plans are over budget and poorly designed. After a re-examination, the state has put the actual cost of the Pataki administration’s plan at about $3.1 billion. State officials say anything larger or even comparable in size would cost at least the same. Now, almost a year into the re-examination, any mention of a facility expansion emits groans of frustration from government and industry officials involved with the planning.The Spitzer administration seems to have three general options available, according to industry sources, a state document obtained by The New York Sun, and a top state development official. The most expensive option would be to proceed with an expansion somewhat similar in size to the Pataki administration’s plan — the state document puts one such plan at $3.3 billion — though it would undoubtedly face hurdles in finding funding from the hotel industry and the state Legislature. The hotel industry has been paying a $1.50 a room tax in anticipation of an expanded Javits, a tax the Legislature could look to increase should the project’s budget grow.Without seeking new funds, the state could take the amount approved for the Pataki administration’s plan, about $1.8 billion, and expand the facility as far as the money will go.Alternatively, in an approach that would likely irk the hotel industry and the city, the state could proceed with a $400 million to $500 million basic renovation that would fix the leaky roof and the air-conditioning system, leaving the structure of the facility mostly unchanged.Such an option could be favored by the group of facility users, industry sources said. When asked by the state earlier this year if it preferred the Pataki administration’s plans or no action on the facility at all, the group of users voted unanimously in favor of no action, the sources said.“They’ve got to be very careful about what they do,” the president of the New York International Auto Show, Mark Schienberg, said. An inefficient design could add significant costs to shows and conventions, Mr. Schienberg said, possibly deterring a base of clients because they would be unable to afford higher prices.Thus many in the industry could be content with a larger plan years in the future, leaving the existing Javits mostly as is for now, despite the years of study and anticipation of an expansion.“Personally, we’d be very happy if they just fixed the roof and fixed the heating and air-conditioning and allow the show customers to continue their business,” the chief operating officer of the exposition management firm the Freeman Cos., John O’Connell Jr., said. “If they continue to be landlocked on that same footprint, that’s a challenge.”Mr. O’Connell, who has extensive experience working with the Javits center, said he favored a southern expansion onto the West Side rail yards south of the facility, a plan long advocated by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried.“The other alternatives are all one less attractive than the other,” Mr. Gottfried said.But the city and state are well along in the bid process for large scale commercial development of the rail yards, and throwing a convention center into the mix would surely cause more unwanted delays, people involved with the plans said.

Powerful Voice in Javits Talks May Push To Scrap Pataki Plan

Powerful Voice in Javits Talks May Push To Scrap Pataki Plan

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