Daily News from New York, New York • 60

(0 DOW JONES 3.40 10,318.16 NASDAQ 5.02 1,915.40 SfisP 500 2.51 1,128.33 Lza LJ L3 LiU P. Biddy's Times Sq. bldg. goes on block The six-story stone building with the red-tile roof is an old-fashioned standout among all the high-rises on the north end of Times Square. But there's nothing old-fashioned about its sole tenant Sean (P.

Diddy) Combs. Scott Latham and Jon Caplan. The building, on the corner of W. 54th is expected to go for up to $60 million. With the cachet of a celebrity tenant, the promise of a reliable rental He's what makes 1710 Broad way a real estate investor's dream, because Diddy is a celebrity tenant with a strong balance sheet.

And now the building's for sale. Owner Properties is cash- ing out after signing a 10-year lease with I i I I. -rJ' in THE REAL THING Sun until 1950. The Dance Space Center rented 25,000 square feet, enough space for a half-dozen studios and a 150-seat theater. Most of it is on the seven-story building's second floor, which has high ceilings and skylights.

There's room on the ground floor for a cafe. The center searched all over the city for a new location. "But after 911, they really wanted to be part of the downtown revitalization," said the center's broker, Tim Surlis of Lansco. "This is good for the building and good for downtown," said Jim Searl of CB Richard Ellis, who along with Brad Gerla was leasing agent for the 1846-vin-tage white marble property, whose upper floors are occupied by the city Department of Buildings. BOBBY'S PLACE Fans of actor Robert De Niro are eagerly awaiting construction of his Tribeca hotel which he's building with partners Ira Drukier and Richard Bom, and $38.9 million in tax-free Liberty Bonds.

But it's not happening yet. The trio wanted to add two stories to architect David Rockwell's six-story design. the music and fashion impresario. Diddy's housing his firms Bad Boy Worldwide and Sean John there. Meir Cohen and Ben Korman bought the empty property last year for $23 million, planning to construct condos.

But then they landed their hot tenant for the handsome 1917-vintage building which originally was Ford's chief New York City auto showroom. "They're developers so it's time for them to move on," said Cushman Wakefield's Ron Cohen, who's brokering the sale with colleagues Richard Baxter, Sean (P Diddy) Combs dons stylish duds for appearance at last week's Fashion shindig at Bryant Park. Yesterday, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission refused to grant approval for that change. "If you can't make a six-story hotel work, build apartments," commissioner Meredith Kane said. Higher energy costs boost U.S.

trade gap stream for the next decade and the ability to develop in the future, what's not to like? DANCING DOWNTOWN The section of downtown dominated by City Hall might not seem like the ideal place for a theater. But a SoHo dance training and performance center sees the possibilities and is moving to landmarked 280 Broadway, home of the old New York oil prices. The Dow edged up 3.40 to 10,318.16, while the Nasdaq gamed 5.02 to 1,915.40. Crude oil rose 52 cents to $44.39 a barrel, after Gulf of Mexico refineries slashed production by a million barrels a day while bracing for an expected hit from Hurricane Ivan. "A lot in the economy, like jobs and housing, has been gaining, so people are willing to tune out some bad news," said money manager Michael Holland.

McDonald's helped boost blue-chips, gaining 43 cents to $27.60 after announcing a 38 hike in its annual dividend to 55 cents a share. Tech winners included eBay, which gained $2.31 to $94.41, and Amazon.com, up $2.66 to $42.67. After the closing bell, Oracle announced a 25 hike in quarterly profit from a year ago, sending its shares up 37 cents in after-hours trading to $10.92. DAN HERRICK ZUMA PRESS So it's back to the drawing board for Rockwell's colleague, Henry Myerberg. The hotel is intended to be located at 377-383 Greenwich on the corner of North Moore St.

LcrpghanedfLnytiaifynews.com usic to Yahoo ears YAHOO, OWNER of the world's most-visited Internet site, will buy Music-match for $160 million to sell music downloads and compete with Apple Computer and Microsoft. Musicmatch's service allows consumers to download and buy songs from the Web for 99 cents each, store music from compact discs on their computers and transfer music to CDs or digital music players. Yahoo's music Web site, called Launch, doesn't let customers store music and doesn't sell downloads itself. The site previously had linked to Roxio's Napster download service. Apple's iTunes sells the most music online.

Microsoft opened an online music store Sept. 2 and other companies may fol low. BY TOM VAN RIPER DAILY NEWS WRITER THE U.S. TRADE deficit swelled to a record from April-through June, the Commerce Department said, highlighted by rising energy prices that increased the nation's import bill. The deficit grew to $166 billion, a $19 billion hike from the first three months of this year.

That brought the imbalance to nearly 6 of the total economy, a level most economists agree cannot be sustained for long without a rise in interest rates. But for now, "foreigners still have an insatiable appetite to invest in our" stocks and bonds, "which has kept rates down," said Joseph LaVorgna, an economist at Deutsche Bank Securities. On Wall Street, stocks hung tough despite the widening deficit and a second straight hike in CM With oil refineries shut down in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Ivan, oil prices jumped 52 cents a barrel..