The Sorgente Group, an investment firm based in Rome, is negotiating to buy the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway, according to an article by David Jones January 1 at therealdeal.com.

The Woolworth Building is one of the world's most famous skyscrapers and from 1913 to 1931 it was the world's tallest building. It was erected for F. W. Woolworth, the owner of the famous 5 & 10 cent store chain and designed by Cass Gilbert. For many years, the terracotta-clad, Gothic-style building was known as "The Cathedral of Commerce."

The building was acquired in 1997 by 233 Broadway Owners LLC of which Steve Witkoff of the Witkoff Group and Ruben Schron of Cammeby's International are principals and plans were disclosed to convert the top floors to 75 residential condominium on floors 30 through 58.

In April, 2008, however, the owners decided not to make the residential conversion.

In their great book, "New York 1900, Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism, 1900-1915," Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin and John Massengale described the building as "a masterpiece which culminated the development of the Composite Era skyscraper and anticipated the monuments of the Era of Convenience."

"The Woolworth Building was remarkable for its free Gothic silhouette and detail, which elevated a rationally composed structural system to heights of lyricism seldom achieved in a commercial building. Truly a 'Cathedral of Commerce,' as the Reverend S. Parkes Cadman dubbed it, the Woolworth Building set the standard for tall buildings for a generation, and Gilbert's Gothic style - 'Woolworth Gothic,' as it came to be known, replaced the Modern French as the most flexible and symbolically appropriate style for tall buildings....With the completion of the Woolworth Building the twentieth-century character of the Manhattan skyline was firmly established."

The Sorgente Group, which is headed by Valter Mainetti, bought approximately a 20 percent stake in the Chrysler Building in 2005 for about $45 million and three years late the article noted that the Abu Dhabi government bought a 90 percent stake in the building for $800 million.

Sorgente also acquired a majority stake in the Flatiron Building on 23rd Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway and intend to convert it into a luxury a hotel, according to the article, which also noted however that "Macmillan Publishing is locked into a long-term lease for another 10 years."

Sorgente is publicly traded and controls about "$2 billion worth of property around the world, including the Galleria Colonna shopping center in Rome and the Hotel Le Saint Paul on the French Riviera," according to the article. "Mainetti, a longtime investor and developer," it continued, "launched Sorgente in 1999....Sorgente reported that the value of its funds rose 2.5 percent in 2008 (the latest figures available), compared with the prior year; however, the value of its Michelangelo Fund, which includes the firm's New York investments, fell 1.99 percent for the six-month period that ended June 2009."

In 2007, Sorgente purchased two adjacent rental buildings on Greene Street in Soho for $14 million and converted them into 34 Greene Street, a luxury condo.