Build It And They Will Come . . . To The Conclusion That A Grand Expansion Of A Convention Center Is No Longer Viable

The “galvanizing power” of a 7 train extension leads to . . . a renovated-but-no-more-expanded Javits Center:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer declared in a speech eight months ago that he would build a “thoroughbred” of a convention center in New York City and scrap the $1.8 billion plan he had inherited to expand the black-glass Javits Convention Center on the West Side.

Since then, state officials — struggling with escalating costs, competing demands and limited land — have had to shrink their ambitions, devising a series of alternative plans that provide a far more modest expansion than envisioned three years ago.

Now, in the latest blow to the governor’s ambitions, the city’s hotel association is balking at requests to triple the hotel tax earmarked for the expansion. That could force state and city officials to abandon plans for an expansion and settle instead for simply renovating the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.