After a three-year investment, the owners of Worldwide Plaza are hoping to pocket as much as $1 billion from selling either a stake or the entire 1.9 million-square-foot behemoth at 825 Eighth Ave. and West 50th Street.

Looking to cash in on a dearth of offerings and the global appetite for city office buildings, the owners want to hit the same $1.739 billion price tag, or $915 a foot, that developer Harry Macklowe paid before the downturn. Macklowe bought the building as part of a $7.1 billion portfolio in 2007 that led to his financial woes and the foreclosure of the property.

The current investment group — George Comfort & Sons, DRA Advisors and the Feil Organization — paid just $590 million, or $310 a foot, in the 2009 Deutsche Bank foreclosure sale when the building was half vacant.

Sources said the bank will participate if the building is sold at a profit as it had to write off more than half the prior mortgage, leaving just the current $470 million loan.

The owners have tapped Eastdil Secured to market the property, according to Real Estate Alert. Neither Eastdil nor the owners returned calls for comment.

Nomura Securities will fill most of the vacancy when it moves into its newly built-out 800,000-square-foot space in 2013. The Japanese firm also has a right of “first offer” for any stake sold, though sources pooh-poohed any interest by Nomura in this deal. Nomura declined comment.

The law firm Cravath Swain & Moore is the second-largest tenant, with 730,969 square feet, while 107,936 square feet is available, according to CoStar Group data.

Atlanta-based Jamestown Properties made $1 billion on the sale of 111 Eighth Ave. in 2010, and again on the sale of 1211 Ave. of the Americas in 2006, both of which were sold through Douglas Harmon of Eastdil.