April 16, 2004
Funny numbers, convention dept.
One of the more interesting moments at today's Regional Plan Association conference on New York's Hudson Yards plan came after Ken McAvoy of convention planners Reed Exhibitions said of the city's available convention space: "We are so far behind [in convention space] in New York, it's pathetic." The city's planned $1.4 billion expansion of the Javits Convention Center (and accompanying $1.4 billion "sports and exhibition center" that would host the Jets), insisted McAvoy, is necessary to compete with other cities that can accommodate larger conventions.
Not so fast, replied Harvard government professor Charles Euchner: "Don't overestimate the convention market," he warned, noting that when Boston set out to expand its convention center several years back, "there were many promises that are identical to those made here, about how many events it would bring." Instead, he said, for the center's first five years, "about eight events are booked, all for free" - the result of a nationwide boom in convention space while demand has remained flat. (Euchner's rebuttal got a huge round of applause from the crowd, notable in that it was mostly made up of business leaders and policy wonks who paid $150 apiece for the daylong conference.)
Earlier in the day, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Richard Ravitch had warned that current MTA head Peter Kalikow was underestimating the value of the rail yards where the Jets stadium would be built. Ravitch implied the air rights to the yards could be worth $3 billion, which if true could send the total public subsidy for the project over $8 billion.
