Verizon is selling the majority of its building at 375 Pearl St. to Taconic Partners for the dirt-cheap price of $172.05 million.

Taconic and investment partner Square Mile Capital are buying a condominium interest in 930,000 feet of the 1.098 million foot structure, Taconic executives said.

“We saw it as a Taconic-style play: finding great bones at a good value and we put our foot to the metal to take it,” said Taconic Partner Paul Pariser.

The group is scooping up the 32-story tower, next to Murry Bergtraum High School and rising over the city’s downtown Civic Center, for $185 a foot at a time when land and even air rights in Manhattan have soared, in some cases, to over $500 a foot.

Taconic has hired Cook + Fox, architects of the the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park for design work and will spend up to $100 million to add as many as six elevator cabs, install new HVAC, new electricity, bathrooms and completely strip and reskin the limestone structure. The new design will also include 360-degree window walls.

Taconic will own the ground retail area along with floors 2-7 and 11-32. Verizon will retain floors 8-10 and cellar space for its “mission critical” switching facilities.

Bill Shanahan, Rob Stillman and Bob Alexander of CB Richard Ellis pitched the former New York Telephone property to a select group of developers on behalf of Verizon.

The deal is expected to close in December.