Javits Center Expansion Plan Updated

But with the stadium proposal now dead and state officials moving forward with plans to build a new $930 million train station east of the railyards in honor of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, some developers, tourism officials, urban planners and architects are now quietly circulating three alternative plans for a larger expansion of the convention center and ideas for what could be built over the railyards.

It remains to be seen whether any of the proposals will be embraced by Gov. George E. Pataki or Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but they have gained support among civic groups, developers like Douglas Durst and Jeffrey S. Katz and the Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association, which opposed the stadium.

"There is a terrific opportunity here, a chance to reconceive what should happen on the West Side now that the railyards are available and the Moynihan train station is moving ahead," said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, a private planning organization. "It's a chance to build on the work the city has already done and to bring together groups that have been divided over the past few years by the stadium and the rezoning."

The most radical plan, known as the "flip," involves building one of the nation's largest convention centers over the two railyards, stretching from 12th Avenue to 10th Avenue, from 30th Street to 34th Street. Developed by the Newman Real Estate Institute at Baruch College, this plan puts the center over a 26-acre "hole in the ground" that has long discouraged development.

Unlike the current Javits Center, which forms a five-block wall between the city and the Hudson River, Newman's convention hall would be perpendicular to the waterfront and part of an east-west corridor that extends from Herald Square to Madison Square Garden, the new train station and the river.

Proponents say this proposal would spur commercial development along 30th and 34th Streets. And once the convention hall is built, the state could knock down the old Javits Center, which sits on 22 acres along 11th Avenue, from 34th Street to 39th Street, and sell the waterfront property for an estimated $3 billion to residential developers.

Interesting. So the idea behind the flip is to get someone (the article doesn't say) to pay for the building of the platform on which the new Javits Center would be built, and then raze the existing structure to make way for new development. However, a more traditional plan to expand the Javits is also moving along, and appears to have the backing of those involved:

Some state officials and tourism executives say that a switch to the Newman proposal would further delay, and perhaps scuttle, the long-sought expansion of the Javits, which was approved last December by the State Assembly. The Javits Development Corporation is in the process of selecting an architect for the $1.4 billion project (the so-called Javits Lite plan), which would extend the convention hall from 39th Street to 41st Street, expanding the exhibition space, in the first phase, from 760,000 square feet to 1.1 million.