Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), One Worldwide Plaza is an office building measuring 778 feet (237 m) tall, with an alternative address of 825 Eighth Avenue.

The classically inspired building contains a three-story granite base, a brick midsection with setbacks, and a pyramidal copper roof with a glass lantern.

Upon opening, One Worldwide Plaza was nearly fully occupied, with two anchor tenants: advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

[2][3] To the west are two residential buildings, Two and Three Worldwide Plaza, designed by Frank Williams;[4][5] they are respectively composed of a 39-story tower and a series of five- and six-story-tall townhouses.

[19][21] By contrast, the roofing and precast concrete were made in Canada,[19][22] the structural steel was bought in Luxembourg,[19][23] and the project used Brazilian granite and Italian marble.

[7][27] Under normal zoning regulations, the maximum floor area ratio (FAR) for any building on Worldwide Plaza's site was 10, but the developers received two bonuses of 2 FAR each, bringing the FAR to 14.

[15][30][32] The building's two original anchor tenants, advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather and law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, had their own entrances.

[46] Jerold S. Kayden wrote of the buildings' plaza: "Its half-acre size, numerous movable chairs, comfortable ledge seating, food service at north and south ends, decorative water fountain, and landscaping of trees and shrubs render it highly functional for the diverse audience.

[55] One Worldwide Plaza's basement contains two entrances[31][36] to the southbound platform of the 50th Street station of the New York City Subway, served by the C​ and ​E trains.

[64] In 1973, Cushman & Wakefield and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill were hired to study the feasibility of constructing a large commercial showroom complex on the site similar to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago or AmericasMart in Atlanta.

[71] Its proposal called for a three-story retail podium supporting a 52-story office building and two 60-story apartment towers; the development would have contained a combined 2.3 million square feet (210,000 m2).

[7] Members of the local Manhattan Community Board 4 opposed Zeckendorf's project, citing the buildings' height and the lack of low- and moderate-income housing.

[80][92][93] Zeckendorf made six other modifications to the project to improve neighborhood residents' quality of life, including storefronts for local merchants, a day-care center, and job training.

[7] In June 1987, the Sonnenblick-Goldman Corporation secured a $545 million construction loan[101][102][vii] from a syndicate of 15 banks[c] in the United States, Japan, Canada, and Europe.

[104][viii] The Wall Street Journal described the loan as part of a trend wherein "the mere mention of a Zeckendorf project had bankers falling over each other to offer financing".

[33][107] In August 1988, the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore leased 370,000 square feet (34,000 m2)[107][116] in exchange for a 7 percent equity stake in Worldwide Plaza.

[118] Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Ogilvy & Mather each had their own entrances and elevators, and the developers gave large "work letters" to both firms, compensating for the cost of interior furnishings.

[130][131] In the wake of Black Monday, the developers were barely able to make mortgage payments as long as the building's original tenants continued to pay rent.

At the time, One Worldwide Plaza was fully occupied by several large tenants with long leases, but the average rent for office space had decreased about one-third since 1990.

[137] The suit was settled in mid-2002 after Equity Office applied to convert ten percent of the plaza's space into a private dining area for the complex's restaurants.

[53][54] In February 2007, after a bidding war with Vornado Realty Trust, Blackstone acquired Equity Office's portfolio, including One Worldwide Plaza and seven other buildings.

[159] George Comfort & Sons put the building up for sale in August 2012, reportedly hoping for a $1.7 billion valuation, almost triple what the company had paid just three years prior.

[161][162] Potential buyers were reportedly worried about the building's tenants including Nomura, which had recently had its credit rating downgraded by Moody's Investors Service, and Cravath, after the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf had declared bankruptcy earlier that year.

[173][174] While the company had initially hoped to sell its entire stake in the building, bidders were discouraged by the property's existing $870 million mortgage, and foreign entities had decreased their investment in New York real estate.

"[190] Following Worldwide Plaza's completion, Goldberger declared that the project had "turned one of the harshest blocks of midtown Manhattan into a glittering island of corporate luxury.

[192] Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post wrote: "Worldwide within its single city block thus epitomizes the transformation from commercial to residential, and it does so in buildings of singular handsomeness and distinction.

[2] Ylonda Gault of Crain's New York wrote that One Worldwide Plaza's completion had "catapulted Mr. Childs to celebrity status in architect circles".

"[35] Nicolai Ouroussoff described One Worldwide Plaza as having a "pointless circular arcade" and said that, like the Hearst Tower several blocks north, the building had a "strained relationship to the streets below".

[196] Gill also disliked the fact that the complex's largest structure (One Worldwide Plaza) was on Eighth Avenue rather than the middle of the block, and he believed the classical detailing to be excessive.

[42][196] Eric Nash wrote in 2005 that the building "lacks Rockefeller Center's sweetly naive spirit, yet still manages to be a distinctive presence on the midtown skyline".