Daily News from New York, New York • 27

THE $51.88 I 2 REAL ESTATE By PETER GRANT MANHATTAN Duffy Square Tlrrm 3j Square A' W. 420 ST. Port Authority Bus Terminal 1 -5 to TRINE GUEVER 0A1LV NEWS FAMILY TIES: Reuters building would be first Rudin tower of 1990s, and the first since William Rudin took over business from his father and uncle. Daily News Business Writer Media titan Reuters is about to choose One of the city's leading real estate families to develop a new Times Square skyscraper for its North American headquarters. Reuters is in the final stages of negotiating a deal with the Rudin family, which in over three generations has built dozens of the apartment and office buildings that punctuate the New York skyline.

If the deal is finalized, Rudin will build Reuters a 38-story skyscraper on the northwestern corner of Seventh Ave. and 42d St for more than $300 million, sources close to the talks said. The project would be the Rudin's first new tower of the 1990s and the first one since William Rudin, 42, took over the family business from his prominent father, Lewis, and his uncle, Jack. The biggest obstacle to the transaction is that Reuters has not yet reached a deal to buy the site from Prudential Insurance Co. The two sides reportedly are still haggling over price.

But sources said agreement is near. "They're pretty far along," said one source close to the negotiations. Reuters, Prudential and Rudin officials did not return calls. The development would be mid-town's third new office building to be announced in the past two years and yet another sign that the city's economy is entering another boom. ,1 Rudin's involvement in the deal demonstrates that New York real estate dynasties once again will play a leading role as the bulldozers roll.

'a'. There has been rampant speculation in real estate circles that the dynasties are being replaced as New York's big building barons by public real estate companies known as real estate investment trusts REITs. io The trusts, which can raise money TTD(DKEC3 MCI slashes Sunday rate MCI Communications said yesterday it reduced to 5 cents a minute its Sunday rate on state-to-state long-distance calls, effective immediately. The reduction, from a current rate of 9 cents to 16 cents a minute, will be available 24 hours a day on Sundays to MCl's residential customers, a spokeswoman said. Customers who use the company's flagship brand, MCI One, currently pay 12 cents a minute for state-to-state long-distance calls on Sundays and will receive the new lower rate, the spokeswoman said.

MCI One is an integrated service that includes cellular, paging and Internet access that are combined in one bill. New chip for laptops Intel today will introduce a speedy Pentium microprocessor, designed specifically for laptop computers, that is smaller, uses less power and generates less heat The new Pentium model, previously code-named Tillamook, is part of Intel's plan to make more microprocessors geared toward portable computers, the fastest growing part of the PC market About 20 computer makers will unveil laptops one only as thick as two legal pads stacked together based on the new chip, Intel executives said. The new mobile Pentium features Intel's MMX multimedia-enhancing technology and comes in two speeds, 200 and 233 megahertz, which are the same as mid and high-range desktop PCs. IBM targets small biz IBM is expected to unveil tomorrow a package of software and services intended specifically for small businesses seeking to enter Internet commerce. IBM plans a worldwide advertising campaign to introduce the service, blanketing 38 countries with television, radio, direct mail, print and Internet spots.

IBM declined to disclose details of the ad budget' industry sources estimated the total billings at about $40 million. WPP Group Pic unit Oglivy Mather, which handles all of IBM's advertising, will run the campaign. The program, dubbed Net.Commerce, is the IBM software group's first major initiative targeting small businesses. IBM has set its sights on smaller businesses for online offerings, because it has found them to be faster adopters of the Internet for business. IBM estimates that worldwide, small businesses will spend $150 billion to $200 billion on information technology in 1997.

Bonds hold the key The fate of a volatile Wall Street this week will hinge largely on how bonds behave, especially if key labor costs and retail sales data due this week turn up any big surprises, analysts said. Traders will also be looking to see whether the trickle of third-quarter blue chip profit warnings turns into a more worrisome steady flow, and how the dollar fares against the German mark. Despite last Friday's benign payroll figures for August blue chips failed to sustain an early rally and tumbled as the dollar and bonds weakened, capping a week that saw the Dow make a record one-session gain of 257 points. Simmering in the background is the unshaken belief among many investors that the Federal Reserve Board will raise interest rates even though the economy is bursting with health, according to the latest batch of data. Analyst expect the Fed will not raise rates at its next meeting, on Sept 30, but at the following one in November.

faster and at lower costs than families, recently have been snapping up such office towers as 90 Park 280 Park Ave. and 875 Third Ave. But the Reuters deal shows that when it comes to development, the dynasties are still the major kingpins, experts said. "They have the experience and the guts to do it," said Julien Studley, the head of a large commercial brokerage. The Rudin family is perhaps the most prominent of the city's dynasties.

Founded in the early 1900s by Samuel Rudin, Jack and Lewis' father, it owns a real estate empire of about 39 buildings valued at $1.5 billion. The family also is very active in civic affairs. The Rudins were the original sponsor of the New York Marathon. Lewis helped rescue the city during its fiscal crisis of the late 1970s and founded the Association for a Better New York, a leading business group. Like many of the city's real estate families, the Rudins emerged from the real estate recession of the early 1990s virtually unscathed.

Because they developed only one building during the 1980s, they were able to ride out the hard times that ruined more prolific developers. "The younger generation did not take the risks that their forefathers took," Studley said. But the Rudins aren't completely averse to risk. They put up $15 million to convert the obsolete office building at 55 Broad St into the New York Information Technology Center, which has attracted many new-media businesses. Reuters reportedly is selecting the Rudins because the family is willing to take on the risk of leasing the 200,000 square feet in the tower that Reuters does not want immediately.

DCO'dDSdD'fy: BflGuiffi gdDDOllg dDdDUOBtoUDU The five-year lease for 10,000 square feet which was brokered by Julien Studley is valued at about $1.5 million. The deal reflects New York's success as a center of new-media businesses. Although the Microsoft Network is based at Microsoft's Redmond, headquarters, it needs to have offices in Manhattan to be near advertisers and artists who design content for the online service. "New York is the only place where we have an office buying content," Soehren said. "There's a lot of avant garde content being generated there." Softimage, which produced special effects for such films as "Twister" and "Casper," also has a small creative office in New York.

Its employes felt out of place in Microsoft's main office at "They wanted to be in an office with a more creative atmosphere than a sales office," Soehren said. Microsoft is moving into 212 Fifth at a time when the Flatiron district is going through a major identity change. The pre-World War II buildings in the area traditionally have been leased to garment companies, showrooms and small public relations and architecture firms. But recently the area has been discovered by new-media and entertainment firms. The owner of 212 Fifth, a group led by investor Frank Ring, has just spent close to $10 million to convert the 85-year-old tower from a showroom building to one catering to high-tech compa-nies.

Its other major tenant is Twentieth Century-Fox. By PETER GRANT Daily News Business Writer Software colossus Microsoft is moving its New York-based interactive unit downtown to the funky, less button-down Flatiron district Microsoft, which has housed its sales and interactive divisions in midtown, plans to move its creative staff to Fifth Ave. and 26th St The company has leased the top floor of the 21-story building at 212 Fifth Ave. to house the New York arm of its online service, Microsoft and Softimage, its three-dimen--csjonal animation software subsidiary. Microsoft will lay about 15 miles of rncable to modernize its space in the 85--j year-old building, which will have an 'industrial nouveau" feeL said Jeffrey Soehren, who is managing the expan- sion project Major corporations are putting Worldwide Plaza, a midtown skyscrap their creative people here," Ring said.

going to be very cool," he said. oam. er. i mlu:.