Even in the face of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to build a brand new center in Queens, the Borough President is going full steam ahead on her own plans to bring a massive meeting house.
In her recent State of the Borough speech, Queens Borough President Helen Marshall reiterated her commitment to a proposed convention center at Willets Point, near LaGuardia Airport. It has been planned as part of a broad area redevelopment effort, in the works since 2004.
“Let me be clear about the convention center at Willets Point,” said Marshall. “It is meant to complement the Javitz Convention Center. And now it can complement the convention center at Aqueduct.”
Recenty, a new convention center was proposed by Cuomo in his State of the State speech as another option --not to complement but to replace the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. He suggests building the new facility at the Aqueduct racetrack-casino in Jamaica, Queens, adjacent to one of the city’s airports, John F. Kennedy International.
The convention center would be 3.8 million square feet – four times the size of the Javits Center – and is tentatively named the New York International Convention and Exhibition Center, or NICE.
