Javits Center will increase in size, get a new hotel

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 9 / November 24 -30, 2006

Javits Center will increase in size, get a new hotel

Chelsea Now photos by Randi Cecchine
Neighborhood resident Susan Pane with her dogs, Susie and Coco, on the site of the future 1,500-room Javits Convention Center hotel on 11th Ave. betweaen 35th and 36th Sts.

BBy Randi Cecchine

The first signs of the Javits Convention Center expansion and renovation project are already visible. On the block bounded by 39th and 40th Sts. and 11th and 12th Aves. demolition crews are making way for a new truck marshaling and loading facility. Phase I of the massive Javits project is budgeted at $1.68 billion. Scheduled for completion in 2010, the Phase I upgrade aims to make the center more competitive in the national and regional convention markets while energizing the local economy.

According to the Convention Center Development Corporation General Project Plan, the Javits Center can no longer compete with the nation’s largest convention centers in Chicago, Orlando and Las Vegas and has recently lost several major recurring trade shows. In order to compete, the plan says, Javits must expand its overall square footage, provide ballroom space, repair leaks and heating/air conditioning problems, create a truck marshaling and loading facility and build a headquarters hotel.
A request for proposals by developers to build a 1,500-room Javits Center hotel on 11th Ave. was issued last month.

The project will coordinate with the planned No. 7 subway extension — as part of which a subway station will be built at 11th Ave. and 34th St. — and will create an open-space network anchored by a new plaza at the corner of 11th Ave. and 40th St., now the location of a Police Department parking lot.

The existing Javits Center — located on the superblock bounded by W. 34th and W. 39th Sts. and 11th and 12th Aves. — was built in 1986. Named for Jacob K. Javits, the New York State congressmember and senator, who died that same year, it succeeded the Coliseum Convention Center at 59th St. and Broadway. The Javits Center was designed by modernist architect I.M. Pei, known for works such as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Louvre pyramid in Paris and local projects, such as the Four Seasons Hotel, Kips Bay Plaza and Silver Towers in the Village.

The designers of the Javits expansion and renovation are the architectural team of Richard Rogers Partnership, FXFOWLE and A. Epstein & Sons International — or, as they are being called for this project, Rogers Fowle Epstein. The team’s leader is Richard Rogers, known for international projects such as the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Millennium Dome in London.

The first phase of the expansion project will create approximately 340,000 square feet of new exhibition space, including approximately 65,000 square feet of ballroom space (creating the largest ballroom in the city) that can also act as swing exhibition space. This will increase the total exhibition space at Javits by 45 percent to 1.1 million square feet. The plan also calls for an increase in the total meeting room space from 30,000 to 210,000 square feet. An additional 50,000 square feet of meeting room space will be available in the new Javits Center hotel.

Highlights will also include a new 100-foot-high, multiblock, glass-enclosed entry and concourse, providing a new tree-lined access along 11th Ave. between 34th and 40th Sts. and establishing the new image of the Javits Center.

In October, Governor George Pataki stated, “The new Javits will not only give New York City one of the nation’s best convention facilities, but it will spur investment, create jobs and greatly benefit the economy. It will also be the latest example of the wave of cleaner, energy-saving ‘green building’ technology that is sweeping the city — another important way that New York continues to lead the nation.”
In June, Community Board No. 4 submitted its comments on the project to the Empire State Development Corporation, the umbrella state agency with jurisdiction over the Convention Center Development Corporation. C.B. 4’s letter outlined both the board’s support and concerns about the plan.

“This board is a strong supporter of a world-class convention center for our city, because of its potential to create direct and indirect jobs, and to create economic vitality that will contribute to the city,” the board stated in its letter. “Sad to say,” the letter continues, “the present plans suggest that this opportunity is being lost. Instead, the plan has been trimmed to suit financial and political expediency, and there is a significant danger that large public sums will be spent on a facility that doesn’t meet what the market demands, is expensive to operate and has inadequate room for future expansion.”

Among the list of concerns, C.B. 4 questioned the wisdom of having a truck marshaling and loading facility south of 40th St. While appreciating the possibility of getting trucks off local streets, C.B. 4 is concerned that this facility both “precludes any possibility of future expansion to the north” and could cause difficulties in loading and unloading, adding costs and reducing the number of possible shows. C.B. 4 is also concerned that the truck marshaling facility will cut off access even more to the Hudson River waterfront.

C.C.D.C. says the more secure, state-of-the-art, indoor truck marshalling facility will expedite the queuing and security scanning of incoming trucks.

On Aug. 7, Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Senator Chuck Schumer called for the Javits Phase II expansion to begin at the same time as Phase I. Phase II would further expand the existing Javits facility and develop the western facade on 12th Ave., “improving the way in which the facility relates to the Hudson River Park when it is completed.” The second phase of construction would create an additional 500,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space. The preliminary cost estimate for the Phase II expansion is roughly $600 million. The mayor and senator stressed that executing Phase II now would limit increased costs and operational disruptions to Javits in the future.
The Javits Center’s development is intricately tied to the future of West Chelsea and the special Hudson Yards zone. It is scheduled for completion the same year as the Moynihan/Penn Station project, another publicly funded undertaking that will improve the local economy by increasing construction and visitors. Local developers see the Javits renovation and expansion as another anchor signaling increased value of local properties.

Local resident Susan Pane, taking her dogs, Susie and Coco, for a walk on Wednesday morning on the site of the future Javits Center hotel, expressed concern about the changes to the neighborhood. Frustrated by the crush of vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the neighborhood, she said that “whenever there is a big event, traffic is horrendous and the neighborhood is filthy. The area wasn’t built for something like that. People who are visiting don’t realize that people live here,” she said.

Although pessimistic about the Javits, Pane, who works in the nonprofit sector and commutes to Grand Central, was positive about the extension of the No. 7 train.
“Any extension of the subway in any direction is a major improvement and will hopefully cut down on car traffic,” she said.