Remember the GM Building? Mort Zuckerman Does

The Slatin Report has the first piece of fresh news in a long while about the possible sale of Harry Macklowe's GM Building. You'll remember it went on the market in January; and then two quick rounds of bids were done by early March. And then... well, not much beyond speculation.

Which brings us to today's news: Daily News publisher and Boston Properties chairman Mort Zuckerman is "the last man standing" in the fight to get the GM Building. And he may have to pay as much as $2.9 billion for it, which would make it the biggest single-building sale ever (that much we expected).

What's unexpected is Mr. Zuckerman himself. The Observer reported in early February that he was considering a bid for the building. "It's a terrific building without question," Mr. Zuckerman told our Eliot Brown then. Later, however, The New York Sun reported that Mr. Zuckerman was, in fact, not involved in the first round of bids.

Now, apparently, he's back in--if he ever left--and he may be extremely close to making what could easily be the biggest real estate news of 2008. And if he does make that news perhaps he can have it reported in Newsday: Mr. Zuckerman's apparently in the running to acquire the Long Island daily; though, our colleague John Koblin wonders in Media Mob, will a GM Building purchase leave him too cash-strapped to buy the newspaper?

It's all so tantalizing and secretive! And, one imagines, for Mr. Zuckerman and others involved, quite the headache. Mr. Macklowe, the GM Building's current owner, has a reputation for being a bit hard-charging. Still, here's Mr. Zuckerman talking to The Observer last October:

I love the business, I love the creation of the buildings and all the agonies you go through. I watch people go in and out of these buildings, and they don’t have any idea of what the complications were to put them up. They take it for granted—it’s just part of the urban landscape. But I think of it as part of an urban design that changed that whole part of the city. I just love it. I love it.

He'd have to.