Sony Building to stay as office block after all

New York

APARTMENTS for billionaires were all the rage in Manhattan three years ago when developer Joseph Chetrit paid US$1.1 billion for the granite-sheathed Sony Building at 550 Madison Ave.

Mr Chetrit hired star architect Robert Stern to convert the building, a 37-storey office tower that was most recently inhabited by Sony, to apartments. An international hotel group said that it would build a five-star hotel on eight floors, and Mr Chetrit filed plans to create a triplex penthouse with a marble staircase and a record US$150 million price tag.