MORT Zuckerman‘s Boston Properties is about to cut a deal with Harry “Houdini” Macklowe that includes the GM Building along with approximately four of Macklowe’s so-called legacy assets.

While there were rumors that Macklowe would either keep as much as a 50 percent stake, or just a small piece for a short amount of time to avoid tremendous capital-gain tax issues, we should learn all of the details today, when the pact is due to be announced.

The deal could also provide Macklowe with some so-called UPREIT shares in Boston Properties that could also shelter him from some of the capital gains.

“Mort would not cut a deal with Macklowe in place,” said a real estate source familiar with the thinking of Zuckerman, chairman of Boston Properties. Years ago, Macklowe started to form his own REIT modeled after Boston Properties but was caught in the dot-com debacle that killed the credit markets at that time.

Sources tell us the buyers of the portfolio are a partnership that includes Boston Properties, Goldman Sachs, the Kuwaiti Investment Authority and a sovereign wealth fund from Qatar.

The deal values the GM Building at 767 Fifth Ave. at about $2.75 billion, and would give Macklowe around $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion to pay off debt and taxes. The four other buildings include Two Grand Central Tower at E. 44th St., 510 Madison, 540 Madison Ave. and 125 E. 55th St.

Macklowe Properties would still own the Adidas headquarters at 610 Broadway and the smaller office buildings at 400 Madison Ave. and 440 Park Ave., along with a portfolio of residential properties.

The dark black office tower at 1330 Avenue of the Americas is said to be fiscally “under water.” It is yet unclear how many other buildings Macklowe will have to sell in order to pay off lenders.

Other Equity Office Properties buildings that Macklowe bought from Blackstone a year ago are either on the block or headed to it.

Eastdil Secured has 25 bids from around the globe for 1301 Avenue of the Americas in the range of $1.5 billion, while Cushman & Wakefield has bids due today on a package that includes the Park Avenue Tower and 850 Third Ave., that will value the former at around $1,000 a foot and the latter in the $600s a foot.

“It’s all good for the market,” said one real estate source. “Until this is resolved, the [investment sales] market is at a standstill.”

Meanwhile, Worldwide Plaza, 1540 Broadway, 520 Madison Ave. and Tower 56 will likely come to market in the next few months as the credit markets adjust and the results of the current sales are tallied by Deutsche Bank, which now controls their fate.

The deal with Zuckerman – arranged by CB Richard Ellis and Citigroup – has been on the table for weeks while Macklowe tried to line up another offer that would allow him to remain with a larger stake.

“He simply ran out of time,” said one source, who noted that his son Billy, president of Macklowe Properties, and Macklowe’s wife, Linda, finally convinced the legendary dealmaker that they’d run out of options and were endangering the family’s personal fortune.

Macklowe’s private-equity lender, Fortress Investment Group, had finally set a deadline of June for the payback of an approximately $900 million loan that was originally due in February.

That loan, along with one made by Deutsche Bank, cross collateralized the GM Building with the Equity Office portfolio as well as some personal assets.

After Macklowe signed the nearly $7 billion pact to buy that portfolio, however, the credit markets tanked and he could never replace that short-term financ ing.

Even while negotiating with Macklowe and conduct ing due dili gence, Zucker man angrily denied during a re cent conference call that he was even interested in the GM building.

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Speaking at the Young Mens’/Womens’ Real Estate Association last week, Jerry Speyer, chairman of Tishman Speyer Properties, spent a lot of time talking about honesty and honoring deals whether made “on a napkin or with a handshake.”

“It’s hard to keep to the deals,” he admitted. “[But] you’d better not renegotiate and you’d better not twist it around because people have long memories.”

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Plaintiffs-only law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein is moving from 780 Third Ave. to Hudson Square digs at 250 Hudson St., where the firm leased the entire eighth floor of 27,000 feet for the next 10 years.

The Jack Resnick & Sons building recently signed Edelman public relations firm to 127,000 feet and Lowe & Partners Worldwide to 40,000 feet.

The 15-story, 360,000 foot former printing trades building is getting a $25 million makeover into modern offices. Dennis Brady and Jonathan Dean of Jack Resnick & Sons acted in-house for the building. [email protected]