GOLDMAN Sachs’ downtown headquarters is finally coming to market – but not as a sale.

Jones Lang LaSalle has been hired by its MetLife owners to pitch the leasing of the 1.037 million-foot tower to future tenants at a price tag that will likely be north of $60 to $70 a square foot.

Goldman is scheduled to move into its spanking brand-new 2 million foot World Financial Center building – now under construction – at the end of next year. According to CoStar data the lease ends in mid-2011, but Goldman is likely to leave it broom-clean long before that.

The tan skyscraper at 85 Broad St. was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill and opened in 1983.

“We feel this is a good time in the market and our intent is to lease it and not to sell,” said a MetLife spokesman. “That’s why we hired Jones Lang LaSalle.” *

Finally setting some value and pushing some momentum back into the sales market, as we reported recently, the GM Building is being sold to Boston Properties, Goldman Sachs and the Kuwaiti and Qatar Investment Authorities, along with three other office towers, for $3.949 billion.

Sources tell us developer Harry Macklowe tried all day last Friday to get a better offer with at least three other groups before finally signing with Boston Properties.

He’d already blown off a midnight deadline from BP CEO Mort Zuckerman earlier in the week, telling a source he’d work on “his own deadline.”

Two of the groups Macklowe negotiated with were Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group and Ofer Yardeni of Stonehenge Management.

Now, the remaining seven buildings acquired for $7 billion from Blackstone Group in its Equity Office Properties buyout are in play with marketers Eastdil Secured and Cushman & Wakefield.

Tower 56 and 527 Madison, two smaller gems, are among those seeing the most interest.

At least one Middle Eastern group is trying to get its hands on all of them, “but that might not be the way it goes down,” advised one source.

Stonehenge and SL Green Realty are among those in the mix.

It’s also possible that German- based Paramount Group, Deutsche Bank’s largest global client, could end up throwing its euro weight around and cherry- pick the best of the bricks.

*

StrongBridge Capital, a joint venture of Howard Michaels‘ Carlton Group and an un named major insurance company, has raised $500 million to lend for mezzanine financing.

They are targeting deals from $100 million to $300 million and will offer loans at 65 percent to 85 percent of the total value.

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