In his annual State of the State address, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced plans to build the country’s largest convention center on the outskirts of Manhattan. Under the proposal, the Jacob Javits Center would cease to exist.
 
“New York is the place to be and New York is the place people want to come to, but New York must stay ahead of the competition,” the governor told members of the state’s legislature, service members and the media Wednesday. “Convention centers are important economic generators. Right now, when you look at the list of where New York is in terms of convention centers, sadly, New York’s convention center, the Jacob Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan, is at the bottom of the list. It’s literally number 12 after places like Anaheim, California, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.”
 
In 2010, tourists spent $50 billion in New York, the governor says, making a new convention center a practical way to spur further growth. The Queens, NY based Aqueduct Race Track area would be the location for a proposed 3.8 million square foot convention center that would be specifically designed to accommodate the nation's largest events, drive demand for hotel rooms and restaurant meals, and create new tourism revenues, a news release from Cuomo’s office says.
 
“Right now, the Jacob Javits Center is not competitive and that hurts the New York economy because we’re not getting the shows here,” says the governor. “We believe we can attract $4 billion in private investment to build a state of the art convention center at the Aqueduct Race Track. It will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs while building the number one convention center in the country and we’ll go from number 12 to number 1.”
 
The 18-acre Javits Center would be turned into residential units, retail areas, recreational facilities and public parks, similar to New York’s Battery Park. To put in perspective the opportunity the space presents, Cuomo compared the World Trade Center site, which was 16 acres, and the United Nations, which is 17 acres.
 
“This is not a new problem, we’ve talked about it for years and about possibly expanding the Javits Center which is hard because it’s locked—the Hudson river is on the west side and there’s development to the north and development to the east—but today is different,” the governor said. “Today is different because we’re not just going to talk about our problems, we’re not just going to talk about the challenges, we’re going to talk about the opportunities and today is different because we’re not just going to talk about this challenge, but we’re going to do something about it. Let’s build the largest convention center in the nation, period.”

Watch footage from the governor's speech here: