Reconstruction of LaGuardia's central terminal announced

From DNA Info:

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey voted Thursday to move ahead with the first phase of a $3.6 billion project to replace the crumbling Central Terminal Building, known as Terminal B, with a new facility which will serve approximately 50 percent of all the passengers at the airport, officials announced.

The agency also selected the LaGuardia Gateway Partners to build the new terminal.
The Central Terminal Building, which first opened in 1964, will be demolished. The replacement will serve as LaGuardia's main entry.

The project also calls for linking the airport’s four terminals, which are currently disconnected, and a number of amenities such as a hotel and business center and a connection to the proposed AirTrain.

A master plan for the redevelopment will be unveiled in the coming weeks, officials said.

According to the Port Authority, construction will be funded by a public-private partnership.

Corona convention center will now just be a hotel

From the Times Ledger:

When the Fleet Financial Group purchased the DiBlasi Ford Dealership in Corona for $17 million in December 2013, it announced it would build the borough’s first convention center. The $200 million project called for a 106,000-square-foot-complex that would “rival the Javits Center” and include a 25-story hotel, residential apartments and plenty of retail space.

Fleet Financial Group has modified its plans considerably. Instead of the LaGuardia Convention Center, the company will build The Eastern Emerald Hotel at 112-21 Northern Blvd. across the Grand Central Parkway from Citi Field.

“The reason we scaled down is because we are trying to take more consideration about the existing traffic conditions in the area,” Fleet Financial Group President Richard Xia said. “It’s no longer a convention center, but a conference hotel that will still take advantage of the proximity to LaGuardia Airport and all the highways in the area.”

Xia could not go into any great detail on the specifics of The Eastern Emerald Hotel because “the project is still in its early design phase” and he did not have a timeline. “Right now we’re doing an environmental cleanup, contaminated soil remediation, and then we’ll go forward with the land use process.”

A conference hotel would serve the Asian business community in Flushing, but Xia has his eyes on an annual event that brings nearly a million visitors to the area each year.

“The US Open is huge and you have all these corporate sponsors who have no place large enough to suit their clients,” he said.

Xia is also counting on other business from the $3 billion mega-mall and housing complex that is planned for Willets Point.

East Elmhurst construction center renderings published

From Brownstoner Queens:

New York YIMBY snatched up shiny new renderings of the gigantic convention center planned across from Citi Field and Willets Point, at 112-21 Northern Boulevard. This building will hold a lot: a 105,964-square-foot convention center, 97,180 square feet of retail, 11,300 square feet of restaurants, 292 hotel rooms and 208 apartments. The whole shebang, to be called the La Guardia Convention Center, will be LEED Gold Certified.

The developer, Fleet Financial Group, purchased the former Ford dealership in 2013 for $17 million. Construction was supposed to start last summer but it looks like nothing’s happened yet, and we’re unsure of a construction timeline.

Doctoroff pushing hard for development of Sunnyside Yards

From the NY Times:

We are an undisputed leader in tourism, yet we lag badly in one important aspect: the huge convention and conference business. Nationwide, conventions add nearly $400 billion to our gross domestic product, and employment in the industry is set to grow 33 percent through 2022. Sadly, New York ranks 64th globally in this business, leaving tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars on the table — resources that could fund better schools, parks and affordable housing.

New York struggles for two main reasons. First, of course, is price. With the average Manhattan hotel room costing nearly $300 per night, we are pricing ourselves out of the market for many major conventions. Then there is the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Located on Manhattan’s Far West Side, Javits was unloved practically from the moment it opened. It’s too small for many events and can’t compete with facilities in other cities.

Fortunately, there’s a solution — one that would not only address our lack of competitiveness in the conventions and conferences business, but would also catalyze the transformation of two neighborhoods and make a meaningful dent in our affordable housing crisis. The best part is that we can do this all without costing taxpayers a dime.

The key is to replace the Javits Center. There’s been talk over the years of expanding it, but that won’t solve the affordability problem. Fortunately, the perfect undeveloped location for a new convention center exists at Sunnyside Yards, the more than 160-acre rail yard that carves a nasty scar through the heart of Queens.

Sunnyside Yards is adjacent to Long Island City, a neighborhood that has blossomed in recent years with new residents and businesses, including nearly 20 new hotels since 2007, with almost as many currently under construction or in the planning stages. The average hotel room rate in Queens is less than half that of Manhattan; a convention center on the border of Long Island City would go a long way toward solving the affordability problem that holds the Javits Center back.

Long Island City is also one of the most convenient, transit-friendly areas in the city, served by eight subway lines. The Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak pass through and park their trains there. Even New Jersey Transit stores its trains in Sunnyside. From my office one block south of Bloomingdale’s in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, I can get to Long Island City by subway in just one stop, and eight minutes flat.

Given the neighborhood’s many advantages, redeveloping Sunnyside Yards seems obvious — but the biggest barrier has always been the multibillion-dollar cost of building a platform over the train tracks that can allow the trains to run while accommodating large construction. The cost has always made the idea a nonstarter, but times — and real estate values — have changed. Stronger market conditions bring us closer to feasibility, but the numbers for building the platform still don’t add up unless we get creative.

That’s why we should relocate the Javits Center to Sunnyside, sell the extremely valuable property the Javits Center owns, and use the proceeds to pay for it.

And where will the conventioneers stay since we are converting all our hotels into homeless shelters?

Doctoroff's back and wants the Olympics in Sunnyside

From Crains:

Now the CEO of Bloomberg LP, Mr. Doctoroff is back at it with a plan to organize a bid for the 2024 games, centered this time on the Sunnyside yards area of Queens. The Doctoroff playbook is at work again. He would put a deck over the rail yards and presumably build his Olympics stadium there as well as thousands of housing units needed for the athletes. Most important, he would construct the world-class convention center New York has always lacked to replace the cramped, money-losing and economically-hamstrung Jacob Javits Convention Center on the West Side, which in turn would free up that key parcel on the West Side for other development.

What could be more compelling? Create new land in a city starved for space, create much needed housing and solve the convention center problem that has bedeviled the city's business community for 30 years. And generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the city or state from the West Side site.

Mr. Doctoroff has had his eye on the rail yards for some time. He had raised the issue of decking over rail yards like Sunnyside in his ambitious NYCPlan 2030 released in 2007, which tried to chart a way to accommodate a growing population while protecting the environment. Almost two years ago, he made moving Javits to Sunnyside the centerpiece of a 2012 speech that seemed to mark a return to public policy.

Cuomo now hates Genting

From Capital New York:

Two years ago, Andrew Cuomo made the Malaysian gambling conglomerate’s agenda his own, putting his full rhetorical and political might behind its ambitious plans for a $4 billion convention-center complex there—a complex the company also hoped would come complete with a full-scale casino. Now, the political darling has become an outcast, with its ambitions of being in on the ground floor of New York’s coming casino boom in doubt.

“Andrew hates them with a passion,” said one knowledgeable source, referring to Genting. “I think that he felt that they didn’t negotiate in good faith.”

The two parties are “on the outs,” said another.

Cuomo declined to comment for this story.

Genting spokesman Stefan Friedman, without getting into specifics, said, “Genting’s relationship with the state is strong, and the people of New York are the beneficiaries of that relationship.”

But you don’t have to be a Cuomo insider to read the tea leaves.

In early January, Cuomo made the convention center idea the centerpiece of his State of the State economic development strategy, relying on what some sources described as an unbinding memorandum of understanding between the state and the gambling company. In that same speech, he said he would seek to legalize casino gambling in New York State.

Given the still-preliminary nature of the negotiations with Cuomo, executives at Genting were taken aback to find their proposal center-stage at the State of the State. But by publicly committing himself to a still half-baked idea, Cuomo had given them leverage to negotiate, and they used it.

In the ensuing weeks, details about the Genting-Cuomo negotiations leaked out, and despite Cuomo’s protestations, those negotiations clearly linked the full-scale casino to the convention center. Not only did Genting want a lower tax rate for its gambling operations, but it also wanted regional exclusivity for its full-scale casino. Goode, the Genting lobbyist, even went on the record arguing: “The state has provided exclusivity to other projects. It’s a logical path. We don’t want to cannibalize our own market.’’

And then, somehow, everything fell apart.

Convention Center for Corona

From the Daily News:

A spacious convention center and 25-story hotel and apartment complex will soon rise on the site of a Corona car dealership near Citi Field.

Fleet Financial Group plans to break ground on the $200 million project in June. The Flushing-based group purchased the 1.67-acre DiBlasi Ford dealership, at 112-21 Northern Blvd., for $17 million last month.

The site sits across the Grand Central Parkway from Citi Field, where a $3 billion mega-mall and housing complex is planned for Willets Point.

The group plans to build 292 five-star hotel rooms and 236 apartments above the roughly 106,000-square-foot convention center. The project will also include about 97,000 square feet of retail space, a restaurant and parking.

Xia is also in talks with Audi to put a showroom on the site.

Because what Queens needs is a 3rd proposed convention center

From The Politicker:

...even though Mr. Doctoroff is no longer in command, might it still be possible to see a gondola stretch across the East River between Lower Manhattan, Governors Island and Brooklyn? Or a light rail line running the entire length of the waterfront from Astoria in Queens to Brooklyn’s Red Hook? Or, most audacious of all, tearing down the Javits convention center and moving it to yet another decked-over rail yard, this time in Sunnyside, where it would be surrounded by apartment and hotel towers and a sizable retail complex?

These were among the proposals Mr. Doctoroff put forward on Friday during a speech at the Municipal Art Society’s MAS Summit 2012. They were meant as examples for the next mayor to latch onto in order to “extend the achievements of the Bloomberg Administration by knitting new connections among emerging communities, amenities and institutions.”

Will this guy just go away already?

Business leaders want to keep Javits

From Crain's:

A major fear for the meetings industry is that the Queens project will upend a decades-old system of doing business at Javits, alienating show producers and attendees who may defect to other cities as a result.

“If Javits were torn down and I had a big show in New York, I would consider moving it to another city such as Philadelphia before I'd consider Aqueduct,” said Jeff Little, the former president and owner of George Little Management, a major tradeshow producer. Mr. Little recently formed a new company after last year's purchase of GLM by Providence Equity Partners.

Genting also faced critics who say that building a large convention center does not make sense when so many mega centers across the country are struggling to book shows.

Over the last decade there has been an enormous decline of attendees at conventions, said Steven Malanga, senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. What's more, he said that just 27% of the 2.3 million people who attended shows at Javits last year were from out of town.

“The rest were day-trippers,” he said. Genting, he predicted, won't be able to attract large trade shows because the industry is simply not growing.

Mr. Goode said there is no shortage of shows that want to come to New York but cannot do so either because they are too large for Javits or because the building is fully booked. At the same time, he conceded that it is not just the enormous events that attract 50,000 or more attendees that he is targeting.

Conventioneers not keen on Aqueduct

From the NY Times:

Trade show and hotel executives have complained that the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is too small since the day the long, black-glass building opened in 1986 on the West Side of Manhattan.

Attendees at the National Retail Federation annual convention in January 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. It is one of the busiest in the nation but is too small for some shows.

But now that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a Malaysian conglomerate are proposing to replace the Javits Center with the nation’s largest convention hall on a site 12 miles away in Jamaica, Queens, industry executives are not so sure it is a smart move.

Conventioneers and other visitors come to New York expecting to see Broadway shows during their down time, eat in famous restaurants and shop on Fifth Avenue, trade show managers and hotel operators say. None of that exists at the relatively remote Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, where the Malaysian company, Genting Group, hopes to build a 3.8-million-square-foot convention center and 3,000 hotel rooms and enlarge its existing gambling hall.

More to the point, they add, Aqueduct is a 60-minute subway ride from Times Square. They fear that some conventions, trade shows and conferences will decide to go elsewhere.

Double the money, double the fun?

From the NY Post:

An expanded racino at Aueduct would more than double the state’s annual take from the racetrack gambling hall, raising the projected payout to $700 million, The Post has learned.

Gov. Cuomo favors expanding the racino in exchange for its private operator, the Genting Group, spending $4 billion to build what would be the nation’s largest convention center at the Queens site.

A racino expansion would net the state more than $700 million per year by a “conservative estimate” based on the state’s analysis of Genting’s projections, according to a senior Cuomo administration official.

The current racino, without the expansion, is estimated to bring the state $350 million a year.

The state takes 70 percent of racino revenues, but would take a smaller cut on new machines, said Cuomo aide Howard Glaser.

Unconventional convention center thinking

From Crain's:

Executives in the tourism and trade show business have been lukewarm about a convention center in South Ozone Park, because of its distance from, and lack of speedy transportation to, Manhattan. They say that the appeal of coming to New York for a trade show is being in Manhattan. Shows held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, for example, draw up to 15% more attendees compared with other cities.

One scenario for the future might include a land grab by Genting for the adjacent racetrack, whose operation would move to the nearby Belmont track.

“We wouldn't oppose a move to Belmont,” said Mr. Goode. The governor has even vaguely hinted that Genting's expansion could affect Belmont.

“There has always been talk about consolidating racing at Belmont,” said Rick Violette, president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, which represents owners and trainers at the Saratoga, Aqueduct and Belmont tracks.

“I'm sure Genting is interested in the land, but we would be very defensive against any initiative that would harm this industry,” Mr. Violette added.

And from the NY Times:

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is spearheading the Willets Point overhaul, did not respond directly to questions about the governor’s Aqueduct proposal. Despite that proposal, Jennifer Friedberg, a spokeswoman for the corporation, said, “our plans have not changed.”

City officials do, however, seem to be less wedded to the convention center as part of a reborn Willets Point. For example, officials take pains to point out that any convention center is years away from being built and is not included in the first phase of the project, which covers 20 of the roughly 61 acres. That phase imagines 400 apartments, 35 percent of which will be for people of limited income, a hotel and 680,000 square feet of retail space.

The corporation is poring over proposals for the first phase from a half-dozen developers and should select a winner in coming weeks. It is also close to acquiring 90 percent of the needed land and is prepared to condemn the rest through eminent domain.

Both Mr. Cuomo’s push for an enormous convention center in southern Queens and the convention center plan for Willets Point come at a time when the centers are losing their appeal.

Uh huh. Although a convention center was the main selling point for the project because of the jobs it would allegedly create, it was never a mandatory part of the Willets Point plan and is not part of phase 1. EDC has been at "90% of the needed land" for a long time... Oh, and phase 1 is more like 10 acres, not 20. Half of the acreage is a buffer zone.

Why doesn't anyone in this state talk to each other about the boondoggle projects they seek to inflict on the public?

Helen confused about convention center

From the Daily News:

Queens is the perfect place for not one but two convention centers, Borough President Helen Marshall said Tuesday.

At her annual State of the Borough speech, Marshall backed Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to build the nation’s largest convention center near the Aqueduct racino.

But she said the city should also continue an earlier plan to create a convention center as part of the Willets Point redevelopment.

“Let me be clear about the convention center at Willets Point,” said Marshall, to a crowd of more than 450 elected officials and community leaders at Queens College. “It is meant to complement the Javits Convention Center. And now it can complement the convention center at Aqueduct.”

Actually, the governor said the Aqueduct convention center would replace the Javits Center so the state could sell the Manhattan site to developers.

Andrew still thinks convention center will fly

From the NY Times:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, stung by widespread doubts about his support for the privately financed construction of the country’s largest convention center at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, offered a full-throated defense of the proposal on Thursday, saying the only cost to the state if the project failed would be “an empty building.”

Dismissing concerns about the weak economic health of the convention business, Mr. Cuomo promised that the Queens project would “cost the State of New York bubkes,” while freeing up for development the valuable land underneath the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.

In an interview with editors and writers for The New York Times, Mr. Cuomo sounded frustrated about the skeptical reaction to the convention center idea, which he proposed during his State of the State address on Jan. 4. He said the proposed development — which would include hotels, restaurants and expanded gambling, as well as the convention center — combined with the redevelopment of Manhattan’s Far West Side, would generate jobs and significant tax revenues. And he voiced confidence in Genting, the Malaysian company that runs a gambling hall at Aqueduct and proposes to spend $4 billion on the convention center.

Mr. Cuomo dismissed concerns about its distance from Manhattan attractions. He said the complex would attract “more of a mass, blue-collar clientele that probably wouldn’t be going to the Broadway shows anyway,” and said many of those who patronized the convention center would be arriving by plane.

At times, Mr. Cuomo seemed to distance himself from the entire matter, saying that if he had been governor in an earlier time, he would not have supported allowing gambling parlors at racetracks, or casinos on Indian reservations, but noting that those forms of gambling already exist in New York. And insisting that taxpayers have no risk in the project, he said, “If we were investing money that we could lose, this could be a problem.”

Hevesi questions convention center deal

From the Queens Chronicle:

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Rego Park), like others, is waiting to see how Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to build the nation’s largest convention center in Queens will play out.

But speaking at a meeting of Community Board 5 on Jan. 11, Hevesi said he is troubled by the process Cuomo chose, limiting the development to Genting America, which operates the recently opened casino nearby at Aqueduct Race Track.

“The city doesn’t give out sole-bid contracts and the state doesn’t either, usually,” he said. “Why did we do it here? Why Genting? Did the governor get a deal?”

He also questions whether or not the governor did his homework before throwing the weight of his office behind a convention center as a panacea for state’s economic ills.

“Convention centers nationally are not making the money that they did a few years ago,” he said. “There’s been a drop-off.”

Cuomo’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.

And a poll says NYers don't want the thing, anyway.

Not so fast, Andy!

From CBS 2:

There was more problems Friday for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s controversial Aqueduct convention center project.

It seems the state doesn’t control a large part of the land and might not get it, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

For a politician who tries to never make a mistake, Gov. Cuomo has suffered a major “oops” moment with his grandiose plans to let the owner of the Aqueduct racino build a new convention center there.

When the governor made that sweeping statement that he wanted to “build the largest convention center in the nation” during his state of the state address, he apparently thought the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey controlled 22 acres of the land at Aqueduct, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to get the bi-state agency to sign it over.

But he was wrong. The land belongs to New York City and Mayor Michael Bloomberg might not want to sell it to him because, oops, he has plans to build a convention center of his own near Citi Field.

And here’s another problem: a change in the city lease could trigger an extensive land use review and City Council sign off. Just imagine how many lobbyists it would take to get that done.

CBS 2 reported last week that the casino project also faces another hurdle. Competitors were not allowed to bid on it, as required by state law.

Cuomo wants convention center at Aqueduct

From the NY Times:

One of Manhattan’s most desirable real-estate assets was at the center of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal Wednesday to build the country’s largest convention center at a racetrack-casino in Queens.

A new 3.8-million-square-foot exhibition hall and hotel at the Aqueduct racetrack in Jamaica, Queens, would free up 18 windswept acres owned by the state overlooking the Hudson River in Midtown Manhattan, a site occupied since the 1980s by the much- maligned Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The land could fetch billions of dollars from developers, say state officials, urban planners and real estate executives. That could plug budget gaps and pay for expensive projects, like expanding Pennsylvania Station.

From the Daily News:

Before Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address Wednesday highlighted his vision to build the nation’s largest convention center at Aqueduct racetrack in Queens, the plan had already taken a major step forward.

On Tuesday, the Cuomo administration quietly inked a letter of agreement for the project with the operator of the Aqueduct racino, Genting New York, a Cuomo source told the Daily News.

In the letter, the Malaysia-based casino operator pledged to invest $4 billion to build the 3.8 million-square-foot facility, the source said.

Genting already controls 67 acres at the South Ozone Park site. But the source said the state will help make adjacent Port Authority land available for the project, and turn existing mass-transit infrastructure into a “convention center” train.

Not everyone agrees that this is a good idea.

Convention center at Aqueduct?

From the NY Post:

A convention complex could be coming to Queens, right next to the soon-to-open slots casino at Aqueduct Race Track, The Post has learned.

Gaming giant Genting, operator of Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct, is considering building a facility after its casino is completed, sources said.

"They want a convention center to rival Javits," said state Sen. Joe Addabbo (D-Queens), who's been briefed on the proposal.

Genting spokesman Stefan Friedman said, "Resorts World is absolutely interested in undertaking additional projects on the land surrounding Aqueduct -- if the right opportunity exists."

So the convention center won't be at Willets Point? You mean those promised jobs at Willets Point were all bullshit?

EDC dropping convention center from Willets Point plan

From the Queens Courier:

In an effort to connect with small businesses in the area, newly-elected Queens City Councilmembers recently met with members of the Queens Chamber of Commerce at the organization’s Jackson Heights headquarters.

Some of the issues they discussed included the loss of area hospitals, the Aqueduct Racino project and the possible altering of the original Willets Point revitalization project.

When the meeting touched on the Economic Development Corporation’s possible abandoning of the proposed Willets Point convention center, Councilmember Karen Koslowitz, of District 29, said that dropping that aspect in particular would be disastrous to the local economy.

“To abandon the original plan would be terrible,” said Koslowitz. “What they are doing is taking away jobs and money from us.”

Hmmm... where is this coming from, eh? The entire project was based on

a) the site being too polluted to stay that way (therefore the entire thing needed to be remediated at once)
b) jobs, jobs, jobs anchored by the convention center.

Part a) was tossed out the window when they went to a phased approach and part b) is on its way out, probably because TDC doesn't think they can build a convention center or it won't be profitable enough for them.

Amazing how the city can approve one plan and then replace it with something entirely different without any elected official raising hell or an investigation being commenced. And the best part is that the City, via Claire Shulman, continues to lobby itself (as well as the state and feds which need to sign off on their disastrous Van Wyck ramp plan) with our tax money even now that we are broke with the electorate begging for crumbs.

Gotta love this city! Developers are ALWAYS the priority!

LIES, LIES, LIES.