The condominium conversion of The Sheffield rental apartment building at 322 West 57th Street will reduce the number of units in the 50-story, brown-brick tower from about 845 to 600 units.

Erected in 1978 by Rose Associates, the building is directly to the west of the Hearst Building, a new skyscraper designed by Sir Norman Foster with criss-cross stainless-steel bracing and jagged corners. Although the Hearst Tower is very large, it will partially block views of less than 5 percent of the apartments in the Sheffield, which was designed by Emery Roth & Sons.

The Sheffield is just to the east of the handsome Park Vendome apartment complex that has a large garden courtyard between 57th and 56th Streets.

The Sheffield, which is known now as Sheffield 57, was sold last year by Rose Associates to Swig Burris Equities, YL Real Estate Developers and S & H Equities for $418 million.

The tower has about 109,000 square feet of office space, a through-block driveway, a plaza, a double-height lobby, a health club, a 345-car garage, and a rooftop paddle-tennis court.

For many years, the building was a lonely high-rise pioneer in the northwest corner of midtown, but in recent years, this area has improved substantially with the conversion of the Hudson Hotel to the west and the construction of the Time-Warner Center one block to the north.

An article by Steve Cutler in the October, 2006 edition of The Real Deal reported that "With all but 90 of the units vacant, Swig is combining and reshaping apartments..., completely replacing the electrical wiring and plumbing, totally restructuring the plaza, expanding and reconstructing the lobby...."

Moed de Armas & Shannon is redesigning the lobby and the recladding of the building's base with granite and glass and Cetra/Ruddy is the architectural firm for the residential conversion.

The building's top two floors will have a private restaurant, a screening room, a children's playroom and a lounge offering breakfast and evening cocktails and that the top floor will have a fitness center, spa, sundeck and a swimming pool that is "open-air in the summer and indoor in the winter," according to the article.

The building was long distinguished by its roof-top paddle-tennis court, which, apparently, will not be kept in the conversion.

Renovated studios, the article continued, will be priced in the low $600,000s, "and one-bedroom apartments in the low $800,000s,...two-bedrooms, priced at just over $1 million; and three-bedrooms with southwest and northern views for around $3 million."

An article by in the October 2005 edition of The Real Deal by Tom Achitelli reported that "In 1990, Rose Associates filed an offering plan for a condo conversion worth about $140 million....that¿listed a per-square-foot-price of about $206...." That offering was abandoned as the city and nation entered a serious recession.

Occupancy is anticipated in March.

There is excellent public transportation and good shopping in this area, which is only a few blocks south of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and also only two blocks from Central Park.