Richard Seifert's design has been criticised for its overbearing scale and contrast with neighbouring Regency architecture, but it is acknowledged as an "imposing and prestigious" luxury building.

They met high demand for residential, ecclesiastical and public buildings of all types in the rich, fashionable town by producing elegant designs which combined contemporary architectural expectations with imaginative devices (such as prominent cornices, bold bay windows and columns with decorative capitals) in a distinctively "powerful and assertive" style.

[8] It had a gigantic tetrastyle portico of Ionic columns, a stuccoed façade, a large dome over the nave and a cupola.

[10] St Margaret's Chapel was demolished in June of that year, and the same firm was commissioned to build a series of exhibition and conference halls topped by a block of flats on the site.

[12][14] The Sussex Ornithological Society rings the chicks each year and has installed a webcam through which activity in the nest box can be viewed.

[14][15] The nest box was threatened with removal in January 2010 when renovation work was scheduled,[16] but this did not happen and the 2010 breeding season produced two chicks.

Early advertising material described the flats as "beautifully finished" and "built to the very highest standards",[12] and the building is typically described as a luxury apartment block.

[8] Opinion regarding Sussex Heights' architectural quality and its contribution to Brighton and Hove's cityscape and skyline is mostly negative.

[8][24] Its effect on both short- and long-distance views has led to it being called "appalling"[5] and the "most damaging" modern building in the city.

[19] Other commentators have noted that it has an "imposing and prestigious" presence, and that it has become Brighton's main landmark (replacing the octagonal tower of the nearby St Paul's Church, which had this status for more than 100 years and was used as a reference point by generations of sailors).