Heck with the Javits Center, Queens Is Going to Be the Place

From a New York City convention-goers point of view this could be the saddest story to come around in a long time. The growth area for convention facilities in the city is going to be....Queens. Yeppers. Per today's Daily News, "Plans are in various stages of development to build convention centers or conference space in five neighborhoods of Queens." Five? Did they say five? Yes, they did. The biggest would be a 400,000-square-foot convention center in Willets Point. Then, there's the magnficent Racino at Aqueduct race track that could have a 60,000-square-foot conference center and a 3,000-seat event center (and add video slot machines and horses to the mix). Oh, and Citifield will have more than 60,000 square feet of "hospitality space." Plus, if Silvercup Studios in Long Island City ever gets anywhere, it wants to build 40,000 square feet of conference space. Finally, we have the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. which claims to be "in talks with multiple developers" to build 30,000 square feet of conference space at two hotels in an "Airport Village" in downtown Jamaica. Of course one dude is honest enough to admit that there could be limits to the Queens convention market: "Too much could be planned, but how much will get built will be decided by how the financing goes." Even so, sorry to Ohio convention friends with Javits Center and Manhattan dreams. We have one word for you: Queens. It's, uh, you know, the place you see when you fly into LaGuardia.
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