PROSKAUER Rose, the law firm that backed out of leasing a big chunk of Mort Zuckerman‘s planned Midtown tower, thus putting the project on hold, may be back at the negotiating table.

Sources said the law firm has resumed talks with Zuckerman’s Boston Properties for nearly 500,000 feet in the proposed tower at 250 W. 55th St.

“It’s supposed to be a deep, dark secret,” advised one source.

We suspect the law firm may have gone too far when they broke off discussions with Boston Properties a few weeks ago.

When Proskauer blinked, Zuckerman punted and, as we previously reported, simply mothballed the project until the economy improves.

Though the project is on hold, Boston Properties said it would continue constructing the tower’s foundation.

When the project was shelved, it put a crimp in Gibson Dunn & Crutcher’s move to 200,000 feet in the bottom of the 1 million-square-foot tower – a solid deal that was signed in 2007 at the peak of the market.

Both law firms do legal work for Boston Properties and both are represented by CB Richard Ellis teams.

On this one, we couldn’t even get calls returned for the past week, let alone a comment.

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Sometimes you’ve got to create the elbow room to make the deal.

Retail maestro Jeff Sutton paid off Bath & Body Works with some soothing moola to clear 3,200 feet for Nike’s Cole Haan division at the architecturally spectacular 141 Fifth Ave.

Sources said the retailer will take over in April and open by the fall. Cole Haan was repped in the 15-year pact by Joanne Podell of Cushman & Wakefield.

The dome-topped building on the southeast corner of East 21st Street had an asking rent of $375 a foot. SL Green Realty Corp. owns the building with Sutton.

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Billy Macklowe is reassuring the brokerage community that 510 Madison Ave. is still on target for a summer opening.

Sources said the only floor leased so far was delivered to Jay Goldman & Co. on Dec. 1 for a build-out and was unaffected by a Feb. 9 fire.

That fire forced the developer to replace base building curtain wall panels.

According to a letter Macklowe sent Monday and forwarded to us, the fire started in a second-floor construction shed, was contained to that floor and no building systems were affected. A stop-work order remains in effect on the building.

Sources said Jay Goldman & Co. may be trying to wiggle out of its lease.

Reps for the firm did not return calls for comment.

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It’s the 360-degree views and $60 asking rent that brought the p.r. firm of Gibbs & Soell to the full, 44th floor of the 55-story 60 E. 42nd St.

“Everyone who walks onto the floor gasps [at the views],” said Billy Cohen of Newmark Knight Frank, the building’s leasing agent.

The firm will be leaving its current 15,000 feet in the steel-and-glass 600 Third Ave. for the new brick-and-mortar space of 12,724 feet in May or June.

Erick Schmall of Studley represented the p.r. firm while Cohen, Jonathan Fanuzzi and Ryan Kass of Newmark Knight Frank worked for owner W&H Properties.

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The long-term ground lease for the Best Western President Hotel on West 48th Street was quietly bought by an affiliate of Investcorp for $142 million from Hampshire Hotels.[email protected]