The Belaire is the expression of an unusual partnership between the Hospital for Special Surgery and The Zeckendorf Company, a major New York real estate developer. The resulting mixed use complex contains the Hospital for Special Surgery nurses’ residence with private residences above.

The first 15 floors of the building are for the Hospital for Special Surgeries program areas. In addition, there is a parking facility below grade, the Hospital for Special Surgeries facilities such as the nurses residences and the sports medical complex can be entered through an 8,000 square-foot landscaped plaza at East 71st Street. This public plaza is intended to provide a place for the whole neighborhood to come and relax, while at the same time it serves as an entrance to the Hospital’s facilities.

The Belaire’s condominium residences have their main entrance on the cul-de-sac on East 72nd Street. Included among its 190 private residences are four penthouse apartments located at the top of the tower, enlivened by wrap-around terraces. The condominium also has a health club with a swimming pool, and there are 70 parking spaces for residents.

The architectural design is a generally modernist vocabulary for the Belaire and has an ornamental and contextual element in the stepped progression to the summit of the building. To give the building some texture and color as well, the exterior is finished in canyon rose brick masonry with rose-colored granite. And though the exterior surface is organized by a system of vertical bay windows, the fact that they are arranged in vertical bays alternately, gives a wonderful scale to the tower. In addition, these bay windows articulate the differences between the building’s two architectural programs, that of the Hospital for Special Surgery and that of the purely private residential zone. The bay windows are used in the living rooms and their floor to ceiling glass offers panoramic views of the city, as well as the East River and its bridges.