'08 Greatest Hits: The GM Building Sale

It's New Year's Eve. Time to take stock of the biggest happenings in New York real estate in '08. The first of many today from The Observer's archives.

June 10, 2008

Zuckerman Exhales: GM Building Deal Closes

“I got great sleep last night,” Mort Zuckerman said on Tuesday afternoon, the day after he and his partners closed on the most expensive single-building purchase ever. Nine hours of sleep, no less.

As chairman of Boston Properties, Mr. Zuckerman on Monday closed on the $2.8 billion purchase of the General Motors Building, New York City’s most coveted trophy tower in a city teeming with trophy towers. The precise closing happened at 4:42 p.m., when he was at home working on an editorial for his magazine, U.S. News & World Report, the topic of which he wouldn’t reveal. (“You will only find out when you buy the magazine.”)

That Mr. Zuckerman was busy working on something else during the culminating moment of an agonizing four-month-long series of negotiations does not mean that the moment was anticlimactic. He just doesn’t sit in on closings. That, apparently, is what lawyers are for.

“I was absolutely delighted,” he said, about going from the “agony” of negotiations to “the peace” of the done deal. “I’ve been to too many of these [closings],” he added. “I just celebrate them by not having anything to think about.”