ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo yesterday proposed turning Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Convention Center site into a Battery Park City-style development with housing, hotels and offices along the Hudson River.
In his second State of the State speech to Albany lawmakers, Cuomo envisioned $2 billion in private investment for the makeover — the latest of several massive redevelopment projects on the West Side.
He called the Javits Convention Center “obsolete” but suggested the site “or elsewhere on the West Side of Manhattan” could host “smaller and medium-sized trade shows.”
Larger events would go to what Cuomo envisions as the biggest convention center in the nation at Aqueduct Raceway.
The 3.8-million-square-foot facility Cuomo proposes for Aqueduct would be built with $4 billion in private investment through a partnership with gaming operator Genting, Cuomo said in the speech, which kicked off the 2012 state legislative session.
Cuomo said his plan for the Javits site, overlooking the Hudson River between 34th and 40th Streets, would be similar to the state-run Battery Park City, which includes housing, hotels, museums and over 10 million square feet of office space.
Mayor Bloomberg — who traveled to Albany for the speech but did not meet with Cuomo — was supportive of the Javits and Aqueduct proposals.
“All of us have agreed that we need a bigger convention center. Could you imagine what we could do if we had a world-class, appropriate-sized convention center?” Bloomberg said.
Two major city business boosters also backed Cuomo’s proposals.
Real Estate Board of New York President Steven Spinola said the plan “holds the potential to create thousands of jobs and revitalize the metropolitan area.”
Bloomberg did clash with Cuomo over the governor’s call for ending the fingerprinting of food-stamp applicants and what he called the accompanying “stigma.”
Saying he heard Cuomo’s proposal for the first time during the speech and noting that no other municipality in the state fingerprints applicants, Bloomberg said the practice helps “keep people from trying to game the system and taking the taxpayers’ money.”
He said the number of “duplicate” food-stamp recipients shrank from about 38,000 in the mid-’90s to some 1,900 last year, proving fingerprinting works.
He also noted that all city employees are fingerprinted and added, “It’s not a stigma in New York City.”
In the speech, Cuomo also called for:
* Legalizing casino gambling.
* A multibillion-dollar infrastructure repair and construction program to include a new Tappan Zee Bridge.
* A privately funded $2 billion “energy highway’’ bringing upstate power downstate — potentially a partial replacement for shutting Westchester’s Indian Point nuclear power plant.
* Public employees pension reform, which state workers’ unions immediately attacked.
* Taxpayer funding for state political campaigns — with New York City’s system modeling state reform — coupled with stricter contribution limits.
* A federally funded “New York State Health Insurance Exchange” to provide coverage for the uninsured and reduce premiums.