The NY Jets are moving to Manhattan!

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Go West (side), Jets   

Wed Mar 24, 7:30 AM ET 

By MICHAEL SAUL, DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU 

The city, state and Jets plan to announce as early as tomorrow a massive $2.8 billion deal to expand the Javits Convention Center and build a football stadium on the far West Side of Manhattan, sources said last night. 

The stadium would bring pro football back to the city after a more than two-decade absence - and provide the centerpiece for the city's bid to get the 2012 Olympic games. 

Officials are determined to start construction on the stadium before July 2005, when the International Olympic Committee (news - web sites) will select the host city. 

The retractable-dome stadium is expected to cost $1.4 billion, with the Jets agreeing to contribute $800 million and the city and state paying $300 million each. 

The stadium would eventually be connected to the convention center, whose expansion has been the dream of hotel and tourism executives for more than a decade. 

The center's expansion and renovation is estimated to cost another $1.4 billion. The city and state have agreed to contribute roughly $350 million each, sources said. 

The rest would come largely from a planned $1.50 per room, per night increase in the city's hotel tax, sources said. 

The proposed expansion will nearly double the convention center's size to 1.3 million square feet, making it one of the five largest in the nation. The convention center is currently the 18th largest in the country, which city and state officials say is a colossal embarrassment for New York. 

Last month, Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., outlined a two-phase construction process. The first phase would expand the center north to 40th St. and south to 33rd St. The second phase would expand the center north to 42nd St. and include a premier hotel. 

Mayor Bloomberg has strongly supported the expansion plan as well as the construction of a new stadium to bring the Jets - whose Meadowlands lease expires in 2008 - home. 

Both Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki are expected to be attend the announcement. 

John Fisher, who heads the Clinton Special District Coalition, which opposes the stadium, said the project will be a "massive tax burden." 

"It's a bad deal for the entire city just because of the amount of resources they're putting on this and dubious returns," he said.