As became known after the bankruptcy of the Signa Group, the government of Hamburg only wanted to sell the property on the edge of Hafencity on the condition that there were already secure tenants for part of the area.

[5] If Signa fails to meet its contractual obligations, the City of Hamburg may issue penalties and claim repurchases rights.

[7] The tower was designed by Christoph Felger from David Chipperfield Architects, an English architecture firm known for a lower high-rise project in Hamburg, namely the Empire Riverside Hotel.

The design consists of a comparatively large, four to five-storey pedestal, on top of which the next six to seven floors are more and more recessed to form the base of a slender, approximately 64-storey tower figure.

Further criticism refers to the more fundamental urban development question as to whether a skyscraper of the planned construction volume fits in with Hamburg's building tradition.

There are also concerns that the project—similar to other major local and national projects, such as the Elbphilharmonie, which opened about a year before the presentation of the draft—could, depending on the contractual details, put another huge financial burden on the city.