Landmarked Woolworth building on the market.

What's a legend worth today? Especially when the building was paid for with nickels and dimes in 19137 That's the challenge facing the potential buyers of the Woolworth Building, the landmarked ivory tower overlooking City Hall Park, which retained its title of "Tallest Building in the World" until 1930.

All 954,495 square feet of the City Hall Park anchor at 233 Broadway has finally, officially, been put on the block by its parent company. The former F.W. Woolworth Co. has just been renamed the Venator Group by chairman Roger N. Farah, who picked the moniker for the company that owns, among other divisions, the Foot Locker and Champs sportswear chains, and is about to buy the Sports Authority, because the word is derived from the Latin for "sportsmen."

J.P. Morgan Securities and The Georgetown Group have been hired by the Venator board to advise the company on the sale of its trophy headquarters.

The neo-Gothic, cast stone and terra cotta tower, with its once glowing roof of gold leaf, cost just $13,5 million to build, and construction was paid for in cash by the proceeds of Frank Winfield Woolworth's Five and Ten Cent Stores. This year, it could fetch $100 million or $200 million or much, much more.

"This could go for more than the otherwise realistic Downtown camps," explained Marc J. Freud, a sales broker with CB Richard Ellis. "While pricing may make sense at $130 to $140 a foot, buyers will be influenced by the capital investment required, and whether or not they have a tenant in hand that can possibly rename the building. And then there is the trophy factor, which will not equate to any other property."

The buyers are being qualified, and interest is coming from all over the world, sources say. This is expected to be a fast track sale, with a decision possible by the end of the month.

Venator is vetting its own situation, and while not a sale/leaseback, could consolidate and remain in the building in about 110,000 square feet, still leaving a block of 300,000 square feet available (400,000 square feet if they move).

"In this market, vacancy is considered a good thing," said one broker, who asked not to be quoted by name.

According to "The Architecture of New York City," by Donald Martin Reynolds, Woolworth wanted to build the tallest building in the world as a headquarters for his company and to provide space for the Irving National Bank.

He knew what he wanted - "a Gothic building with a tower and lots of windows (there are more than 5,000) arranged so that the interior spaces could be subdivided into large or small offices with each, no matter how small, having adequate natural light."

The resulting building designed by architect Cass Gilbert was dubbed the "Cathedral of Commerce" five years later by a radio preacher, the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman, for its emphasis on commercial interests.

The building has nine entrances on Broadway, Barclay and Park Place, and it was optimally located in the center of the city's business world, near City Hall, the Municipal Building, the courts, the post office, banks and the subway, with a stop at its base. "No better location was available to a tenant," states Reynolds in his book.

Today, those same attributes remain, and tenants are still interested. There is a vacancy rate of 89 percent, according to CoStar, and of the 954,495 rentable square feet, there is 101,436 square feet available at asking rents of $25 a foot. The leasing program had stopped.

The building cleared just about $1 a foot on income of about $12 million in 1996, when it was paying about $3 a foot in property taxes. It's 98/99 tentative transition assessment is $25.125 million, and its tentative actual assessment is $28.8 million, reflecting its New York City Finance Dept. tentative value of $64 million. Those assessment numbers could change when the final tax roll is released on May 25th, or at another time if a challenge is open and pending.

A 1970's multi-million dollar renovation by Ehrenkrantz & Associates architects replaced much of the terra cotta.

To meet Woolworth's needs, architect Gilbert suggested using Gothic detail, and did so in abundance, using carved granite for the three-story base, multiple tones of primarily ivory terra cotta for the rest of the facade, decorative ironwork, and numerous carvings and projecting grotesques, reliefs, turrets, flying buttresses and other detailing.

The terra cotta for the entire facade, from the third story to the roof, was made by the Atlantic Terra-Cotta Company in Perth Amboy for $265,000, and watched over by Gilbert's own craftsmen, who also undertook certain of the numerous symbolic and humorous carvings that grace the facade and lobby.

The eagle centered above its front arch faces the 1907 Beaux Arts U.S. Custom House at the foot of Broadway, which Gilbert designed after winning a competition which brought him to New York.

Salamanders symbolize the transmutation of the iron and clay through fire into the building's interior steel frame and terra cotta, while numerous owls stand for wisdom, night and industry.

There are glass mosaics and various colored marbles throughout the three-story domed lobby, where a compass at its very top points to the north.

For $11,500, the sculpting firm of Donnelly and Ricci was commissioned to create all the decorative designs of the facade, entry way and lobby in terra cotta, iron, bronze, wood and plaster, and execute the decorative marbles.

Among the most interesting are the dozen plaster brackets, or corbels, created by one of Gilbert's craftsmen, Thomas R. Johnston, depicting men who worked on the building.

Naturally, two were of Woolworth and Gilbert. The bespectacled latter holds a model of the new building, which had been created for $6,000 for display at European trade. fairs, where it was damaged during World War I and finally demolished by a World War II bombing.

The caricature of FW Woolworth has him counting the coins he used to pay in cash for the building. The coin in his left hand has on it a profile of Gilbert, and Woolworth is said to have "laughed heartily" at first sight, ordering it never to be removed.

Other caricatures, found just under the illuminated stained-glass ceiling of the grand staircase leading to the bank space, depict figures holding up wares available from the five and dime stores, while another figure is shown loosing his shirt.

Woolworth had a high regard for the French Emperor Napoleon, and was sometimes referred to as the "Napoleon of Commerce." A visit to the Palace at Compiegne in June of 1913 inspired Woolworth's private office to be patterned after its Empire Room. There is also an exhibit in the 28th floor reception area containing company memorabilia, Woolworth's desk and objects depicting Napoleon.

Construction of the lofty new building with a center courtyard brought new challenges of wind pressure and danger for the workers, requiring special outrigging, scaffolding and bracing for the roof work.

They installed the copper sheathing, and then 40 men took four months to roll out sixty- to seventy-foot lengths of gold leaf carefully over the 40,000 square-foot area of the tower and lower roof.

The now darkened roof begins its slope upward at the 52nd story, first to the 55th story and then the pinnacle, topping out at its highest Barclay Street side at 793.5 feet. To ensure the proper height, the Metropolitan Life Insurance's building clock spire at 23rd Street was measured, and the new tower's final height exceeds that by 100 feet.

When completed, the Woolworth building was surpassed in height only by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which was sent, along with all the ships then at sea, a telegraph announcing its opening on April 24, 1913 at 7:30 pm.

That was the exact moment when President Woodrow Wilson, in his office at the White House in Washington D.C., pressed a button that officially opened the Woolworth Building in New York City by turning on all of the lights. An orchestra then started playing "The Star Spangled Banner" for the architect and 825 dignitaries gathered on the 27th floor for a dinner party.

In October of 1995, REW predicted the property would be put on the market by the struggling Woolworth Company, but even back then, they said the price had to be right.

Whether they get what they need today will be as much a function of the ego value of owning an exquisite, irreplaceable, world-renowned property, as it will be on the strict economics, and whether new, invigorating and professional ownership can bring up that bottom line, provide a high-tech infrastructure, and still have money to spare for a new golden roof.