The 34-story residential condominium tower planned for 309 Fifth Avenue between 31st and 32nd Streets will now be a hotel project and its design has also changed.

The glass-clad building will have a low-rise base and a setback tower whose top will be illuminated at night.

Ismael Leyva is the architect. His other projects include Plaza 57, Post Toscana, 15 Renwick Street, One Carnegie Hill and 785 Eighth Avenue.

309 Fifth Owners LLC, of which Haskel Cohen is a partner, is the developer.

The mid-block building, which utilizes development rights transferred from a qualified Inclusionary Housing site and air rights from 313 Fifth Avenue, will be 452 feet high, according to documents on file with the Department of Buildings.

The original apartment building design called for a blue-glass-clad tower about 100 apartments and had two cantilevered and angled sections and "sawtooth" northwest and southwest corners with many balconies.

The new design, also by Leyva, now has alternating bands of dark blue and dark green glass and no balconies facing the avenue and the only the top third of the tower is angled.

The area between 23rd and 33rd Street and Fifth and Madison avenues has recently witnessed substantial new residential activity.

A tall residential tower was erected at 425 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street, and another was recently completed at 325 Fifth Avenue, and plans were recently disclosed, among others, for a new mid-block tower at 224 Fifth Avenue across from the recent conversion of the former Gift Building at 225 Fifth Avenue. In addition a major tower is planned at 400 Fifth Avenue and construction is nearing completion at the Sky House at 11 West 29th Street and the new owner of the former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company clocktower building on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue indicated it was proceeding with its residential conversion, which is half a block north of the construction site for One Madison Park, another tall new residential tower at 22 East 23rd Street.