Less than a year after completion, the structure had to be strengthened when it was discovered that, due to a design flaw, the building was vulnerable to collapse in high winds.

The northwest corner of the tower overhangs St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, a granite structure designed by Stubbins.

Also at the base is a sunken plaza, a shopping concourse, and entrances to the church and the New York City Subway's Lexington Avenue/51st Street station.

[9][11] St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church occupied the corner of Lexington Avenue and 54th Street;[6][12] its sanctuary was rebuilt when the Citigroup Center was developed.

[29][30] In February 1970, the congregation signed a letter of intent to sell its building, as well as the air rights above the church,[29][30] to First National City Bank.

The company did not intend to develop the sites of these buildings, but they contained topless bars, which Citibank officials perceived would decrease the value of the tower.

[63][64] The bank's vice president for real estate management, Arthur E. Driscoll, had studied vacancy rates at fourteen nearby "prime office buildings" while Citicorp Center was being developed.

[44][45] The remaining stories were occupied by a variety of firms, including those in law and accounting, as well as the Consulate-General of Japan and technology company IBM.

[95] By late 2000, Dai-Ichi's broker Jones Lang LaSalle had placed the entirety of the office building, which had become known as the Citigroup Center, for sale.

[101] Eric Hadar's company, Allied Partners, along with Boston Properties, ultimately finalized their purchase of both condominium shares that April.

[119] At the time, Boston Properties was contemplating renovations to the building; the company filed alteration plans for the plaza that July,[120] and it was vacating the space in the office annex.

[128][129] Following the completion of the renovation, in late 2019, Anna Castellani signed a lease for a 10,000 sq ft (930 m2) food hall at the base of the Citigroup Center.

[4][51][50] Of the other principals at Hugh A. Stubbins & Associates, architect Peter Woytuk was most involved in the design, while project manager W. Easley Hammer oversaw the construction.

[43][151] The aluminum is silver-colored, like that on the Pepsi-Cola Building and One Chase Manhattan Plaza, because Stubbins thought a dark color would not allow observers to "see the shade and shadow".

[157] Even after the solar-collector plans were scrapped, the design was kept; Stubbins wrote that the roof "relieves the uniformity of flat-topped towers proliferating in the center of the city".

[14][161] A large plaza, 12 ft (3.7 m) beneath street level, was designed by landscape architect Sasaki Associates and built along with Citicorp Center.

[163] While many developers took advantage of the "bonus", the New York City Planning Commission found in 1975 that many of these plazas ranged from "bleak, forlorn places" to those that were "forbidding and downright hostile".

[170] During the plaza's construction, the developers collaborated with the numerous public agencies that had a stake in the project, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operated the subway station.

[79][160][193] The wind loads from each eight-story tier are transferred into the center of the frame, where 60 in-wide (150 cm) "mast column transports" extend the tower's entire height.

[194] The chevrons are not visible from the exterior but can be seen from the offices inside;[60][195] this contrasted with structures such as Chicago's John Hancock Center in which the diagonal beams could be seen from the outside.

[147][199] Even though the rooftop solar collectors were not installed, the other features were intended to reduce energy use by up to 42 percent, compared with a regular office building of the same size.

[60][146][195] Located within the rooftop mechanical space, the TMD is designed to counteract swaying motions due to wind and reduces wind-related movement by up to fifty percent.

[60][207] As the building was being completed, Huxtable took a less harsh tone, saying that it contained a "clear desire for design quality" despite the drawbacks of the form and roof.

[209] A New York magazine writer, Suzanne Stephens, stated that the building was simply a modified version of a 1950s skyscraper,[60][189] considering the rooftop and base to be wasteful with space.

The architectural critic Paul Goldberger wrote for The New York Times that the roof was unusual and that the building had a reflective facade and a varied form, but that the overall design was not particularly innovative.

[67] Another architectural critic, Jack Egan, similarly wrote for The Washington Post that the building had distinctive design features but did not appeal to either nostalgia or novel innovation.

The historian and writer John Tauranac described the tower as the "most dramatic new skyscraper" in New York City since the completion of 30 Rockefeller Plaza several decades prior.

[10] The urbanist and sociologist William H. Whyte spoke positively of the structure for its juxtaposition of design elements, such as the exterior plaza and sidewalk.

[215][216] The AIA's 2007 survey List of America's Favorite Architecture ranked the Citigroup Center among the top 150 buildings in the United States.

[219] In addition, the top left corner of the first "M" in Manhattan Mini Storage's logo was sloped to resemble the Citigroup Center's roof.