The project is a seven-story glass-and-steel structure to be called 610 Broadway. Officials at locally based Macklowe Properties say plans for the building have already been approved by the Buildings Department and groundbreaking is scheduled for March. Construction is expected to take about a year. The site is currently occupies by an Amoco gas station, a car wash and a three-level underground parking garage.

Macklowe is calling 610 Broadway the first modern glass building developed in SoHo. Studios Architecture of San Francisco has come up with a dramatic design that maximizes the use of an insulated clear glass curtain wall, cross joist supported steel beams throughout the structure and an 80-foot-high interior atrium on Broadway.

The building will have about 80 feet of prime retail frontage along Broadway. The 12,000-sf ground floor will have a 19-foot ceiling. Upper floors will range from 13,750 sf to 10,000 sf. Two glass elevators in a glass elevator shaft will be visible from Houston Street. Interior loading docks will be located on the Crosby Street side, which has less traffic than Broadway or Houston Street.