) and was in the process of selling off his holdings. Hearst considered issuing $35.5 million debt, in part to repurchase the Hearst Magazine Building, but ultimately withdrew his proposal. In 1945, George B. Post and Sons prepared plans for nine additional stories. Plans were filed with the New York City Department of Buildings the following year, at which point the tower was slated to cost $1.3 million. However, the additional stories were never completed. The Hearst Magazine Building remained largely untouched throughout the 20th century, except for the replacement of the storefronts at ground level in 1970. The Hearst Corporation resumed planning for a tower atop the Hearst Magazine Building in the early 1980s. At the time, the building had just been restored. During much of that decade, the Hearst Corporation rapidly acquired media concerns such as magazines, publishers, and television stations. In 1982, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) started considering city-landmark designation for the Hearst Magazine Building. Further discussions of landmark status occurred in 1987, and the LPC finally granted landmark status to the building's facade the next year. The landmark designation meant that the LPC had to approve any proposed changes to the Hearst Magazine Building's exterior. Beyer Blinder Belle proposed a 34-story green-glass tower during the late 1980s, but this plan did not progress. Tower addition The Hearst Magazine Building was ultimately too small to house all of the Hearst Corporation's divisions, despite being the company's headquarters. By the beginning of the 21st century, the building contained the Good Housekeeping offices, corporate offices, and Hearst's media division, while Hearst's other magazines were published in several buildings nearby. Accordingly, in 2000, the Hearst Corporation announced plans to consolidate all its divisions by completing its long-delayed tower. Planning for the tower had been fueled in part by the development of other media headquarters nearby, such as the planned New York Times Building and the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square. Hearst supposedly met with Polshek Partnership early in the planning process. In February 2001, the Hearst Corporation announced that it had hired Norman Foster to design a tower addition. Foster's selection, which followed his failed bid to design the New York Times Building, led one architect to say: "My guess is Hearst wanted to outdo the Times." In spite of the September 11 attacks later that year, the Hearst Corporation decided to proceed with