A contingent of trade and consumer show managers—who oversee some of the biggest events held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City—has come together to fight Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to tear down the facility.
Senior executives of companies that produce many of the largest shows at the Javits Center took a bold public stand—revealed last month—when they sent a letter to the governor in late April that stated their opposition to the demolition of Manhattan’s West Side facility.
The letter was also distributed to some 600 officials, including state and city legislators.
The executives state they will not use the much larger planned venue in Ozone Park, Queens, at the Aqueduct raceway that is to be built by the casino operator Genting Americas.
They prefer a proposed, albeit troubled, development plan at Willets Point near Citi Field, also in Queens, which is closer to Manhattan.
“Javits customers are adamant that the Javits Center remain open long term,” the letter stated.
Calling themselves Friends of Javits, the group is composed of 21 of the largest tradeshow companies in the business, which produce such events as the International Restaurant & Foodservice Show and the New York International Gift Fair, as well as organizations such as the Toy Industry Association and the National Retail Federation, which also produce big events at Javits.
“We wanted to let the governor know that there is a strong base of support [for keeping the facility] and to ask him to reconsider tearing it down,” said Britton Jones, chief executive of Business Journals Inc., which produces 17 events at Javits a year.
Without the tradeshow industry’s support, the proposed 3.8 million-square-foot convention center at Aqueduct—the largest in the country—would be tough to fill.
The New York Hotel Association also recently sent a position paper to its members expressing its support for the Javits Center to remain open.
The main objection to a convention center in Ozone Park is the one-hour-plus distance and lack of speedy transportation to and from Manhattan. But the Willets Point project would take decades to come to fruition.
The city has signed a deal to develop the area by building a retail complex, hotel and residential units, but there was no mention of a convention center in the first phase of the development plan.
Genting, the Malaysian-based firm that opened Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct raceway last October, has been trying to win the Javits loyalists over.
“We look forward to continuing to work with the tradeshow operators to demonstrate what a fantastic opportunity the New York International Convention and Exhibition Center could be for New York City,” said Stefan Friedman, spokesman for Genting.
Christian Goode, Genting’s senior vice president of development, invited tradeshow executives to Aqueduct in February, but the meeting didn’t yield the most desirable results for the company.
“We have many more questions than answers about the project,” Jones said. “Genting admitted it has a lot of homework to do.”
In addition to keeping Javits open, the executives are also asking the governor to consider expanding the 26-year-old facility once its $463 million renovation is completed.
Meanwhile, Friends of Javits met with officials from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in April regarding the development of the massive James A. Farley Post Office at West 34th Street, where part of the building is being considered as a smaller alternative to the Javits Center.
But the group is not sold on that proposal either.
Despite their protests, the demise of the Javits Center is “inevitable,” according to Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, an urban-development group.
“Convention centers in all the major world cities are being moved out of central business districts,” he said.