Thanks to a breakthrough in bureaucratic red tape, Pritzker Prize-winner Fumihiko Maki, whose design has been on hold since 2004, now has the green light to begin construction of a 35-story addition to the United Nations complex in New York City. 

Seven years ago, Maki submitted the winning proposal to the United Nations Development Corporation's competition, open only to Pritzker Prize winners, to design a tower to join the UN's Secretariat building, the skyscraper designed by architectural icons Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier that serves as the organization's headquarters.

Stalled indefinitely in 2004 by New York's state senate, theproject sat on the shelf until this month, when city and state officials came to a $73 million agreement freeing a neglected 22-block expanse of Manhattan's eastern waterfront, making room for the new office tower as well as an esplanade along the East River. Maki & Associates, with New York-based architectural firm FXFowle, are now ready to get to work. 

"We have a saying around the office," Dan Kaplan, a principal at FXFowle, told The New York Observer. "It takes a long time forthings to happen suddenly." 

Maki's proposal, originally designed in collaboration with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, drew inspiration from the Secretariat forinspiration, assuming the shape of a long, narrow slab with expansive exposures to the east and west. Originally expected to have been completed in 2008, the building is scheduled to break ground in 2013, as small adjustments must be made to the original design before moving forward.

Maki has other high-profile New York projects in the works, including 51 Astor Place, a shimmering office building of glass and granite, and 4 World Trade Center, a 72-story tower that will face the 9/11 Memorial.