The new skyscraper, 200 meters high, will be occupied by a hotel with 45-50 rooms and 80-90 apartments. In order to obtain permission to build a building of this height, developers are going to use the unused "rights to airspace" of the nearby masterpiece of modernism.
Since the Seagram Building is almost 30 meters wide from the sidewalk, the building uses only part of the “air volume” above its site. In addition, with a height of 160 m (38 floors), it does not reach the maximum height allowed by city regulations.
The tower, designed by Norman Foster, will look like a narrow thin "plate", will not disturb the existing landscape around the architectural monument, and even the shadow of the new building will not cover the "Seagram Building".
RFR, which commissioned Foster to design this hotel at 610 Lexington Avenue, owns, among other facilities, the Seagram Building and the equally famous SOM Lever House across Park Avenue.
