Buildings
Groups Sue to Stop Javits Expansion
(archrecord.construction.com - 05/19/2006)
By Alex
Ulam
The Municipal Art Society (MAS), a non-profit
urban planning group, and the Hells Kitchen Neighborhood Association
are taking legal action against New York State’s Empire
State Development Corporation, and other state agencies, over
a revised plan for the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention
Center released in April. The suit was filed on May 5 in New
York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. According to the plaintiffs,
the new plan requires additional environmental reviews because
it will result in millions of square feet of new development
that were not examined in a 2004 environmental impact statement
(EIS). That EIS covered an earlier Javits Center plan as well
as a now-defunct plan for a football stadium. The new development
projects would be located in a part of Manhattan that already
suffers from severe traffic congestion, and air and noise
pollution, says MAS president Kent Barwick. He adds that,
“Neighborhood residents and the general public are being
denied an honest assessment of the effects of this massive
new set of projects.”
Among the changes in the revised expansion
plan for the Javits Center is the addition of a new 2.45 million
square foot mixed-use development in place of a public park.
Under the earlier plan, that park
would have occupied a whole city block over the Hudson Rail
Yards. Meanwhile, new plans are being made for the development
of the adjacent three city-block site, where the stadium was
to have been built, also over the rail yards. According to
some estimates that site potentially contains 6.8- million
square feet of developable space.
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