Byline: Associated Press
NEW YORK -- Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Thursday proposed the city develop a sprawling sports, convention and entertainment complex that would bring into the same neighborhood a domed football stadium, a new Madison Square Garden and the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
The mayor described the proposal as an economic engine that would bring new vitality to the largely underdeveloped area on Manhattan's West Side, as well as an opportunity to lure back the New York Jets, the football team that left for the Meadowlands in New Jersey years ago.
Details were sketchy. The mayor didn't put a price tag on the project or set a date when it might be built, and provided only a vague outline on how the development would be funded, apparently through a combination of public and private dollars.
He also alluded only generally to how the land could be acquired.
If completed, he boasted it would become a stage for huge concerts, major sporting events and conventions, lucrative business that New York now often loses to cities with domed stadiums and big convention centers.
``What you would see in development in this whole area would pay for this many, many times over,'' the mayor said in his annual address to the City Council. ``This would become the most famous sports facility in the world.''
The proposal comes at a time when the city has been negotiating new stadiums with baseball's New York Yankees and Mets. The Mets plan to stay in Queens, but Giuliani has faced some of his toughest criticism over his openness to the possibility of moving the Yankees out of the Bronx.
A statement issued by Cablevision Systems Corp., which owns the Garden, said the company had ``great interest'' in the mayor's plan. ``We will do everything we can to support this development,'' said Cablevision president James L. Dolan.
