The building was designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, and is managed by Silverstein Properties through a ground lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), the landowner.

Opened in July 1981 as the Vista International Hotel, it was destroyed during the September 11 attacks in 2001, along with the rest of the World Trade Center.

[9] Outside World Trade Center, nearby buildings include 195 Broadway and the Millennium Hilton New York Downtown hotel to the northeast, as well as One Liberty Plaza to the southeast.

[10][11] For most of the 20th century, the site of 3 WTC was occupied by the Cortlandt Building, built in 1907 and one of two office structures that comprised the Hudson Terminal complex.

[13] During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the adjoining section of Cortlandt Street had been part of Manhattan's Radio Row, which contained many electronics stores.

[32] In the months following the attacks, architects and urban planning experts held meetings and forums to discuss ideas for rebuilding the site.

[33] The architect Daniel Libeskind won a competition to design the master plan for the new World Trade Center in February 2003.

[45] As part of the project, Cortlandt Street (which had been closed to make way for the original World Trade Center) was planned to be rebuilt between 3 and 4 WTC.

[48][49] The three buildings would comprise the commercial eastern portion of the new World Trade Center, contrasting with the memorial in the complex's western section.

[54] The PANYNJ was supposed to give the site to Silverstein Properties at the end of 2007; the contractors would have received a $10 million bonus if they had completed the work early.

[55] Investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co. expressed interest in relocating its headquarters to 3 World Trade Center in mid-2008.

[61] Merrill balked at Silverstein's offer,[62] and it withdrew from the project in July 2008 after failing to secure a lease on favorable terms.

[61][63] Merrill's withdrawal came shortly after the PANYNJ had announced that the World Trade Center redevelopment would be delayed significantly.

[79] As part of the arbitration process, Silverstein requested a $2.6 billion tax-free bond issue for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site.

[82] The next month, the PANYNJ and the city and state governments of New York agreed to fund $600 million for 3 WTC's construction after Silverstein had found tenants for at least 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) of the space.

[85] PANYNJ board members from New Jersey acquiesced to the deal with Silverstein, but only on the condition that the agency also fund a reconstruction of the Bayonne Bridge.

[86][87] Three PureCell fuel cells were delivered at the World Trade Center site in November 2010, providing about 30 percent of 3 WTC's power.

[92][93] At the time, although the complex was originally supposed to have been anchored by large financial firms, these companies were generally no longer seeking to expand their space.

[94] Silverstein Properties and the PANYNJ agreed in early 2012 to complete only the first seven stories of 3 WTC unless tenants could be found by the end of the year.

[107][108] GroupM signed a letter of intent for the building in mid-2013,[94][109] and the company finalized its lease that December, taking 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2).

[110][111][112] The following month, U.S. senator Chuck Schumer obtained $340 million in federal Recovery Zone bonds to finance the project's construction.

[132][133] That June, the architects eliminated the planned rooftop masts, reduced the building to its final height of 1,079 feet (329 m).

There was a heavy wind gust at the time,[143] and construction workers were securing the crane when it veered into a 12th-story glass panel, cracking it.

[152] In the first three months of 2019, Silverstein leased space to Hudson River Trading,[153] Casper Sleep,[154] beverage firm Diageo,[155] technology startup Asana Inc.,[156] and mortgage lender Better.com.

[174][175] The eastern and western elevations of the facade contain K-shaped bracing, which is composed of diagonal beams clad in stainless steel.

[172] One wall of the lobby contains Joystick, a 46-foot-wide (14 m) mural by James Rosenquist, which was originally painted in 2002 and reinstalled at 3 WTC in 2020.

[170][179] The mall connects to the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, which in turn links with the New York City Subway and PATH trains.

[173][179][180] The terrace on floor 17 was originally designed as a mechanical area with space for financial companies' equipment, but this was scrapped when GroupM became the building's anchor tenant.

[1] When 3 WTC was completed in 2018, James Gardner of The Real Deal New York wrote: "I can say with reasonable confidence that it will prove to be the least architecturally interesting of the four main buildings on the hallowed site.

"[181] In particular, Gardner criticized "the arbitrary asymmetries, the industrial aesthetic in one part but not another, the shift in cladding patterns" in the design.