text: Design and construction Preliminary design specifications required that the final building be no taller than the existing Federal Triangle structures, be constructed of similar materials, emphasize pedestrian traffic, and have a "sympathetic" architectural style. An architectural model by the firms of Notter Finegold & Alexander, Mariani & Associates, and Bryant & Bryant depicted a building with a long, uninterrupted facade along 14th Street NW and two colonnaded hemicycles on the east side (matching the Post Office Department building's hemicycle). The preliminary design specs were criticized for not more clearly specifying the architectural style, for bringing another 10,000 new workers to Federal Triangle each day, and for reducing the required number of parking spaces by 30 percent to just 1,300. The five public members of the design committee were named on April 6, 1988, and were former Senator Charles H. Percy, chair; Harry McPherson, president of the Federal City Council; Donald A. Brown, chair of the Federal City Council's International Center Task Force; Michael R. Garder, a member of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation; and Judah C. Sommer, a local attorney. Groundbreaking on the now-$350 million building was scheduled for 1989, and completion in 1993. Disagreements broke out in mid-1988 over which federal agencies should take up residence in the structure, and whether they should be trade- or foreign-policy related. Seven designs were submitted in June 1989, each incorporating a base-middle-crown structure and enclosed in traditional materials (limestone facade, vertical glass windows, terra-cotta roof tiles). Each design incorporated a new home for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (a Smithsonian Institution entity), an outdoor memorial to President Woodrow Wilson, and exhibition and retail space.
  Construction began in mid-1989. Contractors estimated the cost of the building at between $550 million and $800 million, far higher than the anticipated $350 million original price tag. The design committee picked the $738.3 million design submitted by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners in October 1989. A consortium led by New York developer William Zeckendorf Jr. was chosen to build and operate the building and lease it to the government. One of the firms which had lost this contract subsequently challenged the bidding process.