The site is owned by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, though Rudin and Reuters have a long-term leasehold on the building.

The eastern facade has a curving curtain wall with a wedge atop the southeast corner, as well as a triple-height lobby facing Seventh Avenue.

[5] 3 Times Square is at the eastern end of a city block that also contains the Todd Haimes, Lyric, and New Victory theaters.

[7] The subway entrance in the building is on 42nd Street, about 75 feet (23 m) west of its original location at the corner with Seventh Avenue.

[22][23][24] The building is part of the 42nd Street Development Project and, thus, could bypass many city zoning rules such as those relating to floor area ratio (FAR).

[15][28] The Seventh Avenue portion of the facade is a curtain wall with a curve pointing southwest toward the nearby theaters on 42nd Street.

[32] The corner of Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street has a seven-story cylindrical "rotunda", which was intended to attract pedestrians to the retail base.

[46] Rudin and Reuters had developed 3 Times Square with green building features in part because it was eligible for a green-building tax credit passed in 2000.

[36][47] 3 Times Square is designed to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent compared to an office building of similar size.

[48][47] The Rudin family initially decided against installing fuel cells or photovoltaic panels in the building, as had been used at Fox & Fowle's previous design for 4 Times Square.

[36][47] Structurally, the underlying rock is capable of supporting 40 short tons per square foot (390 t/m2), which obviated the need for caissons in the foundation.

[8] The elevators contain a destination dispatch system, wherein passengers request their desired floor before entering the cab, and touchless entry points.

[62] Four towers designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee were to be built around 42nd Street's intersections with Broadway and Seventh Avenue, including one at the present-day site of 3 Times Square.

[65][66][67] In 1988, the ESDC convinced Prudential to give up part of the 3 Times Square site to New 42nd Street so the New Victory Theater could have a delivery entrance.

[52] Furthermore, as part of the West Midtown special zoning district created in 1982, the New York City government had allowed new buildings in Times Square to be developed with an increased floor area ratio.

To ensure the area would not be darkened at nightfall, the city passed zoning regulations that encouraged developers to add large, bright signs on their buildings.

[63] In exchange for being permitted to delay construction of the sites until 2002, Prudential and Park Tower were compelled to add stores and install large signage on the existing buildings.

[31][76] The same year, Douglas Durst acquired the site at the northeast corner of Broadway and 42nd Street,[77] and he developed 4 Times Square there.

He was discussing with news agency Reuters, publisher Ziff Davis, and financial firm Morgan Stanley as possible anchor tenants for a building on that site.

[87] After the Rudin family and Reuters signed an agreement in October 1997, they realized the site was too small to accommodate an 855,000-square-foot building under zoning law.

[39] The administration of mayor Rudy Giuliani agreed to give Reuters tax exemptions to encourage the development of the $400 million headquarters.

In April 1998, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) allowed the Rudin family to be exempt from adding escalators in exchange for a $1.3 million payment.

The excavation process was complicated by the presence of two nearby historic structures, the subway tunnels, and the three streets bordering the site.

[99] The next month, the surrounding section of Seventh Avenue was closed temporarily after a debris and a piece of wood fell from the construction site.

[59] The Reuters headquarters officially opened on June 4, 2001, with speeches from former U.S. Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

[104] Despite the September 11 attacks in Lower Manhattan shortly after the building's opening, Chase Bank took some retail space by the end of 2001.

[33][54] Rudin had hired FXCollaborative (which had been renamed from Fox & Fowle) to redesign the lobby and add a 16th-story amenity area.

[128] When the building plans were announced in 1998, Herbert Muschamp wrote for The New York Times that the design "is decent, well mannered and deferential, and if you were a gentleman, you would tip your hat.

"[129] Joseph Giovannini of New York magazine expressed his appreciation for the design, saying that "the Reuters Building does not strive to be a perfect whole" but was instead influenced by its setting.

[131] Ned Cramer wrote for Architecture magazine in 2000: "What they built is more of an identity crisis—a mish-mash of forms and materials utterly lacking in finesse or wit or higher meaning.