Located at 10 Columbus Circle is the intersection's most spectacular architectural achievement, the Time Warner Center. It was designed by architects David Childs and Mustafa Kemal Abadan of the Skidmore, Owings and Merill architectural firm and developed by AREA Property Partners and The Related Companies. The complex consists of two identical 750-foot towers standing upon a common multi-story atrium. It was constructed between 2000 and 2003 on the place where the famous New York Coliseum convention center used to stand. A few years after it had become an integral part of the New York City skyline, the building had the highest market value in the city: $1.1 billion.
The Time Warner Center building was the first large-scale construction project to be completed after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in the World Trade Center. It was actually being constructed during that tragic autumn day and therefore its architectural resemblance to the Twin Towers created a big stir among New Yorkers. It was named after its owner, the Time Warner multinational media corporation, whose 1.1 million-square-foot headquarters are found in the fifty-five-story building. The skyscraper's total floor area is 2.8 million square feet. Besides the Time Warner headquarters, the building also houses the VMware software R&D center, the Mandarin Oriental hotel, residential condominiums and a shopping mall called the Shops at Columbus Circle, which includes top designer boutiques and the popular Whole Foods Market, a store dedicated entirely to natural and organic foods. There are also a couple of exceptionally refined restaurants. One is Per Se, a New American and French Restaurant that the New York Times newspaper considers the best restaurant in New York City. The second, Masa, happens to be the most expensive dining establishment in New York and one of the most expensive in the world.
The most expensive residential apartment in the Timer Warner Center was the penthouse condo bought in 2003 by Mexican businessman David Martinez for $54.7 million. The Time Warner Corporation itself sold its headquarters to the Related Companies Development Group in January 2014 for $1.3 billion and will be moving to another skyscraper, the Hudson Yards in midtown Manhattan, which is currently still under construction.