Watch out Las Vegas and Chicago because New York is tired of slumming it at the bottom of the convention center charts. And it’s planning to reverse its fortunes by building the biggest convention center in the country.

New York Govenor, Andrew M. Cuomo, announced the plans for the new convention center, to be located on the outskirts of Manhattan, in his annual State of the State address. The plan calls for the construction of a 3.8 million square foot convention center that he claims will be capable of hosting the country’s largest events as well as boosting revenues for hotels, catering, restaurants and tourism.

It will be located on the site of the Queens-based Aqueduct Race Track. The casualty will be the existing 18-acre Jacob Javits Center on the west side of the city, which he says should be redeveloped into residential units, retail areas, recreational facilities and public parks.

“New York is the place to be and New York is the place people want to come to, but New York must stay ahead of the competition,” the governor told the media in his address [see video below]. “Convention centers are important economic generators. Right now, when you look at the list of where New York is in terms of convention centers, sadly, New York’s convention center, the Jacob Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan, is at the bottom of the list. It’s literally number 12 after places like Anaheim, California, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.”

He added: “Right now, the Jacob Javits Center is not competitive and that hurts the New York economy because we’re not getting the shows here. We believe we can attract $4 billion in private investment to build a state of the art convention center at the Aqueduct Race Track. It will be all about jobs, jobs, jobs while building the number one convention center in the country and we’ll go from number 12 to number 1.”

Sounds like a tall order but could New York become the convention capital?

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