New York City Needs Another Convention Center

January 16, 2019

According to the Commercial Observer, most major cities throughout the United States have more than one convention center. Providing event planners, business executives and tourists with more destination options, calendar flexibility and diverse spaces from which to choose seems pretty logical. Sadly, that’s not the case in New York.

Over the past five years, over $9 billion has been invested to increase the number of hotel rooms, expand our world-class cultural venues and modernize transportation gateways. But when it comes to event and meeting spaces, we are lagging behind. While preparing the recent Building Congress report on capital investment in the tourism and cultural sector, it became clear that New York City is leaving an immense amount of unrealized economic opportunity on the table.

As reported by Commercial Observer, on Manhattan’s West Side, the city’s spectacular—yet lone—convention center, the Javits Center, is considered the busiest in the United States, and it’s undergoing a major expansion thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo. The addition of more than one million square feet, including more exhibition and meeting space and a rooftop pavilion overlooking the Hudson River, will certainly help to attract larger, more high-impact events to the region.

But it’s still not enough.

With more than 175 events a year, the iconic Javits Center is so popular that some international and national shows simply cannot come to New York because there are no available dates in a given year. Large hotels, such as the Hilton and Sheraton, fill the gap by hosting smaller meetings, but capacity constraints have long hindered our ability to attract premier national conventions and conferences.

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