The GM Building, the tower that Mort Zuckerman's Boston Properties this week closed on for a record-breaking $2.8 billion, may no longer be known as the GM Building.

Just minutes ago, in a Boston Properties investors conference call to discuss the acquisition, president Douglas Linde said the GM Building's name may officially change, since General Motors -- which moved its headquarters there 40 years ago --is moving its remaining three floors, more than 100,000 square feet, from the marble tower to the Citigroup Center, another Boston Properties tower, also in Midtown.  read more »

Boston Properties chairman Mort Zuckerman appeared on Fox Business Channel on Wednesday. He talked about his record buy of the GM Building, the development at the World Trade Center site, and the foreign investment in city real estate. He also, apropos of nothing (as far as we can tell), took himself out of the 2009 mayoral campaign:

“If you ever hear anybody or me talking about that, you have the right to send me to a serious shrink.”

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My colleague Dana Rubinstein has inside details about the record GM Building deal in today's Observer.

The Wall Street Journal asks the burning question: Why did Mort Zuckerman and partners pay so much for a tower where most of the leases are locked in for several more years?  read more »

“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.  read more »

Early on Tuesday afternoon, Mort Zuckerman told a REBNY luncheon that he and his partners were closing on the approximately $2.8 billion purchase of the GM Building "as we speak."

At 4:38 p.m., a deed hit city records marking a $690 million transaction between Mr. Zuckerman's group and Macklowe Properties, the former owner of the GM Building, for the office tower at 761 Fifth Avenue (an address for the GM Building).  read more »

The GM Building sale is "closing as we speak." That's according to Mort Zuckerman, who is addressing a Real Estate Board of New York luncheon this afternoon.

Mr. Zuckerman's Boston Properties, along with partners including Goldman Sachs, negotiated the purchase of the Macklowe Properties building late last month in a deal that valued it at around $2.8 billion. It's the most expensive building sale ever.

Mort Zuckerman doesn't screw around.

His Boston Properties could close as early as next week on its $2.8 billion purchase of the GM Building, according to Reuters.

Just as intriguing, Reuters is reporting that Boston Properties is considering buying out the remainder of FAO Schwarz's lease on the ground floor, and the leases of other below-market tenants:  read more »

The first few days after the biggest U.S. building sale ever was inked, things at the GM Building were “pretty much routine” in the words of one doorman, save for the presence of a few unofficial, four-legged tenants seen scampering among the stuffed animals at FAO Schwartz.

Not many people who work at the GM Building appeared to notice that Harry Macklowe had hammered out a deal with Mort Zuckerman and partners on Saturday to sell the jewel in his real estate crown for about $2.8 billion. By now, longtime GM tenants have surely grown accustomed to a changing of the guard every so often. Manhattan's most expensive office tower has had four different owners since 1991—five if you count Sheldon Solow—some of whom have shaken things up, and others less so.  read more »

Harry Macklowe’s early morning Saturday sale of the GM Building and three other midtown towers to a group led by Mort Zuckerman’s Boston Properties did more than just yank New York’s most virile phallus from the market. The GM Building deal slaughtered what had become a favorite scapegoat among brokers for the dip in Manhattan building sales: that investors, bewildered by the credit crisis and unsure how to price their buildings, were waiting for Mr. Macklowe to trade and show them the way.  read more »

Billy Macklowe, president of Macklowe Properties since 2002, is expected in the next few weeks to succeed his father as chairman of the firm, according to the Wall Street Journal this morning.

The succession, not entirely voluntary on Harry's part, is fallout from the nearly $4 billion deal cut over the weekend that cost the Macklowes ownership of their jewel, the GM Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, as well as three other Midtown towers.  read more »