The building's articulation consists of three horizontal sections similar to the base, shaft, and capital of a column, clad in granite, brick, and architectural terracotta respectively.

[1][7][8] The building was designed by Cass Gilbert and constructed by the George A. Fuller Company in the Beaux-Arts style.

[11] The National Fire-proofing Company provided the fireproofing materials,[12][13] while Hecla Iron Works was the ornamental metal supplier.

[17][18][16] The facade incorporates one of Gilbert's trademarks, the extensive use of architectural sculpture on the cornice of the arcade at the top of the building, which includes the heads of lions and women.

The three-story base is clad in stone, the eleven-story shaft is of brick, and the four-story capital is decorated with architectural terracotta.

However, Andrews had convinced Gilbert to add color after they traveled to see the buildings on the Columbia University campus.

[22][23] The lowest two stories of the base are rusticated granite piers topped by Tuscan-style capitals with cartouches, festoons, and plaques.

New foundations were installed under the adjacent buildings, without disrupting business in these structures, and the outer walls of the Broadway-Chambers site were shored up.

[4] The building's steel superstructure, covered by walls and fireproofing materials, was designed to resist wind pressures of up to 30 psf (1.4 kPa).

The floors are made of hollow tile arches, 9 inches (230 mm) thick, covered with a layer of concrete.

[27] The ground-floor space was intended for retail, the basement was to be used for a restaurant, and the subbasement housed the building machinery.

[6] Just before being selected to design Andrews's building, Gilbert had moved his offices to New York City.

[4][33] Work proceeded in spite of several difficulties, such as the lack of heat in January, as well as the fact that the building's woodwork and rooftop copper had been burned at the wood mill in 1899.

[37] Gilbert received a medal from the Paris Exposition, addressed solely to "Monsieur Broadway-Chambers, Etats-Unis".

[4][33] Some of its early tenants included confectioners Manufacturers' Purchasing Corporation,[39] as well as insurance interests such as the People's Security Company[40] and Aetna agent Frank F.

The storefronts were also rearranged: the original arrangement had three, but this had been changed to four by the late 20th century, with the westernmost bay on Chambers Street turned into a service entrance.

[43][44] Architects' and Builders' Magazine characterized the building as "represent[ing] the latest ideas in design, the most improved methods of construction, and in its mechanical outfit".

[8] Architectural writers Sarah Landau and Carl Condit wrote that the Broadway–Chambers Building was often described as one of New York City's first pure and "simplified" skyscrapers, although Landau and Condit state that this distinction was actually held by the American Surety Building at 100 Broadway, completed in 1894.

Schuyler saw the polychrome terracotta as "the next advance in the execution of the accepted [tripartite] scheme" of building design.

[47] Paul Goldberger, writing in The New York Times in 1977, called the Broadway–Chambers Building "a fine eclectic skyscraper with an especially elaborate cornice.

"[48] In 1998, Muschamp wrote that the red brick with blue highlights "is especially fine", and that "In contrast with the light-colored stone and terra cotta, it gives an almost colonial feel to an otherwise classically conceived structure.