According to Bizzi & Partners Development, LLC, the development of 400 Fifth Ave., a luxury high-rise commercial hotel, residential tower hotel and residential condominium, has reached a milestone in construction and was celebrated with a topping out ceremony held on October 30. The project has been designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects, and consists of a 60 floor building with a total gross area of approximately 570,000 s/f. The development will contain a five star hotel, with 214 hotel rooms, including 157 guestrooms and 57 hotel/suite apartments, a gracious lobby, restaurant, bar, spa, health club, and other amenities. Topping the tower will be 190 luxurious Midtown Manhattan residential condominiums. The project is scheduled to be completed in fall 2010. "400 Fifth Ave. will add to the overall historic and landmark character of midtown Manhattan, and will provide a number of exquisite amenities rivaling that of any luxury hotel or residence in New York City. The development will offer the most luxurious services found here or abroad," said Giuseppe Rossi, executive vice president. "The design of the building consists of a tower set back from the street, atop a 10-story base or podium. The expression of the tower and base as distinct components affords the flexibility to respond to the context of multiple scales, that of the city, the street, and the pedestrian, each on its own terms," said Robert Siegel. "The podium of the building reinforces the precedent of street-wall buildings. One of the great challenges in designing this building was to relate to the three surrounding landmark structures in terms of scale, rhythm, and materiality. The base or Piano Rustico is formed by the arcade expression of the first three floors. Consistent with the Tiffany and Gorham buildings, this expression of singular, large scale openings consolidating multiple floor levels reinforces the gracious scale of the block at the street level," said Siegel. A curving facade segment, at the intersection of Fifth Ave. and West 36th St., continues the rhythm of the windows while acknowledging the continuity of the "front" facade, which extends from the residential entrance on 36th St. to the hotel entrance on Fifth Ave. Limestone cladding at the podium relates the new building's materials to the rich and varied palette of stone cladding characteristic of the adjacent historic structures.