"They've been going through all these steps in very deliberate fashion, so I'm confident that the work will proceed," says Richard Anderson, president of the Building Congress. For the city's construction industry, the Javits Center project is expected to generate approximately 9,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to the PACB.

What it doesn't provide, in Anderson's view, is evidence of forward momentum on other large-scale infrastructure projects that have been stalled at the starting gate, such as Moynihan Station. "This project is proceeding apart from any other project," he says. "It's had a life of its own for more than a decade." He adds, "While it's encouraging that significant work is under way, it's nothing like what was originally contemplated."

A plan to expand the convention center's exhibit space by about 45% was scrapped in early 2008 by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who said he "couldn't rationalize" the expense. Spitzer told a Building Congress audience that costs for the expansion had ballooned from the projected $1.7 billion to $5 billion. The scaled-down plan that was approved by the Empire State Development Corp. in March, and by the PACB last week, calls for a 100,000-square-foot addition, including 40,000 square feet of new exhibit space--about 5% of the center's current exhibit capacity.