In 1985 the Rockefeller family bought the entire Rockefeller Center complex from Columbia University and immediately set out to modernize many aspects of the complex. As one of these components, the Rainbow Room was closed for a $20 million restoration and expansion that brought the restaurant's floor area to . David Rockefeller, the son of John Rockefeller Jr, commissioned the restoration, led by Joe Baum, Arthur Emil, and Hugh Hardy. At the time, Baum and Michael Whiteman were the restaurant's operators. The Rainbow Room's expansion went through the only passageway that led to the RCA Building's observation deck, so the deck was subsequently closed. The Rainbow Room reopened in December 1987 with cuisine, cutlery, and decorations designed to evoke the restaurant as it had been in the 1930s. The restaurant's 300 lights were synchronized with a new sound system and a new entrance was added at the southwest corner. The artist Dan Dailey created "Orbit", an glass mural, for the western wall behind the stage, that was eventually moved to the Toledo Museum of Art in 2017.