floor area. Lever Brothers rejected media reports that it was considering moving to New Jersey. Bunshaft said at the time that he never thought the building's small size would have resulted in its demolition. The plans prompted preservationists to request that the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) consider designating the building as a city landmark. On November 9, 1982, the LPC designated Lever House as a landmark. LPC rules specified that New York City individual landmarks be at least 30 years old, making Lever House the city's youngest landmark at that time. Fisher Brothers opposed the landmark status. The firm in charge of designing Fisher Brothers' proposed building, Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, prepared a white paper for the LPC, which described Lever House as "undistinguished and not worthy of preservation". George Klein, who was in contract to buy the lease on the building itself from Metropolitan Life, favored landmark status. At the time, Klein was trying to develop a structure on the Jofa Building site and incorporate Lever House into the new development. Lever Brothers also supported the designation, but it had hired its own architectural firm, Welton Becket and Associates, to prepare plans for the Jofa site. The landmark status had to be ratified by the New York City Board of Estimate to become binding. If the landmark status was ratified, the building could not be demolished unless the landmark status caused significant economic hardship even with tax exemptions. The Board of Estimate was to have voted on the landmark designation in January 1982, but this was delayed. It was unknown whether the Board of Estimate would have enough votes to uphold the building's landmark designation, since several board members had expressed their wish that the site be redeveloped more lucratively. This prompted preservationist Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to say, "It would be too bad if we treated our buildings as disposables and threw them away every 30 years." Among the reasons Fisher Brothers had cited in their attempt to replace Lever House was the structure's deteriorated condition. Welton Becket and Associates estimated the cost of restoring Lever House at between $12 and 15 million. In February 1983, Fisher Brothers publicized plans for its forty-story tower, which they claimed would create 1,500 jobs and generate $9.4 million annually in taxes. The same month, several hundred preservationists, such as architect Philip Johnson and former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy