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New York On Track to Build Country's Largest Convention Center
January 5, 2012
Yesterday, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his vision to build the nation’s largest convention center at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens during his State of the State address. Today, the New York Daily News reported that the Cuomo administration has signed a letter of agreement for the project with the operator of the Aqueduct racino, Genting New York. Under the terms of the agreement, the Malaysian-headquartered firm pledges $4 billion to build country's largest convention center.
Genting already controls 67 acres at the South Ozone Park site. But the New York Daily News reports that the state will help make adjacent Port Authority land available for the project, and turn existing mass-transit infrastructure into a “convention center” train that will offer easy access to the facility from Manhattan.
The new 3.8 million-square-foot convention facility will replace the 842,000-square-foot Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. The convention center plan dovetails with what is expected to be another key part of the governor’s plan to revitalize the city’s economy: legalizing casino gambling to create new revenue for the state. Cuomo predicts that the new development will add 3,000 hotel rooms and generate tens of thousands of jobs. In his address, Cuomo stated that with the new facility New York State would jump from having the 12th largest convention center in the country to having the largest.
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