360 Madison Avenue

Cost: $65 million

Development Team

Owner/Developer: Madison 45 Co., NYC
General Contractor: Pavarini McGovern Construction Co., NYC
Architect: Richard Cook & Associates, NYC
Structural Engineer: Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers, NYC
MEP Engineer: Jaros, Baum & Bolles, NYC
Curtainwall Consultant: Gordon H. Smith Corp., NYC
Curtainwall Contractor: Permasteelisa Cladding Technologies, Windsor, Conn.
Structural Steel Fabricator & Erector: ADF Steel Corp., Montreal, Canada
Concrete Contractor: Carlton Concrete Corp., Floral Park, N.Y.

360 Madison Avenue, completed last year at a cost of $65 million, was unusual because it combined a renovated old building with a completely new one.

The old building was located on the same Madison Avenue lot as the current structure. It was a 120,000-sq.-ft. steel structure originally built in 1910 as a stone-clad Abercrombie & Fitch department store. In the 1970s it was relaunched with a reflective glass curtain wall and turned into an office building. For the current transformation, the old building was stripped to its steel frame and the original 17-floor frame extended to 23 stories.

The adjacent building at 17 E. 45th Street was demolished and replaced with a new 26-story tower with a concrete superstructure.

Then architects from Richard Cook & Associates, Architects - working closely with structural engineer Jacob Grossman, a principal with Rosenwasser/Grossman Consulting Engineers PC - combined the two into a new 355,000-sq.-ft. office building with a distinctive white painted aluminum and glass façade.

The steel and concrete superstructures were constructed a foot apart and the floors of the concrete building were built about an inch higher than the steel floors, to allow for settling. Rosenwasser/Grossman designed a concrete joint with steel reinforcing to connect the two buildings.