ABOUT REAL ESTATE; OFFICE SPACE OFFERED IN LANDMARK SCRIBNER BUILDING

The Scribner Book Companies, the Scribner Book Store and the landmark Scribner Building that held them were sold last year, but the new owners of the 72-year-old building on Fifth Avenue at 48th Street are hoping some of the old Scribner mystique remains long enough to help lease, or possibly sell on a condominium basis, 36,000 square feet of office space on the upper floors.

The bookstore, with its flamboyant black-and-gold iron work, striped awnings and balconied selling floor, is one of the best-known shops in New York. But most of the space above, which until last October housed the offices of the Scribner Book Companies, the publishing group, is non- descript, except for the oak-paneled editorial offices. The floors are small by modern standards - just 5,000 square feet.

Nevertheless, the building offers an opportunity that does not arise often in New York, the chance to put a company's name on a landmark. The new owners - a partnership of members of the Cohen family, which runs the Duane Reade drugstore chain in New York - have offered to rename the building for a single tenant or purchaser who takes all the space.

Norman Brickell, whose firm is managing and leasing agent for the building, is relying in his marketing efforts on the continued presence of the bookstore, which has managed to keep operating almost without disruption despite the complicated sequence of deals involving the building over the last year.

Last April, Macmillan Inc. acquired the Scribner Book Companies. Then, in August, the Scribner family sold the building, which had housed the concern since it was built in 1913. The bookstore, on the street level, was owned separately and continued to operate but its lease was due to expire. Charles Scribner 3d, who now works for Macmillan, said the bookstore could not afford to remain on Fifth Avenue as an independent enterprise, and late last year he started searching for other space. His first choice was the old Sohmer Piano Company building on 57th Street just west of Fifth Avenue.

At the same time, Rizzoli International Book Stores, a New York company owned by Italian and Swiss interests, was planning to leave its Fifth Avenue store near 56th Street and also needed a new location.

There are several versions of what happened next, depending on who relates the events. Mr. Brickell, who brokered the sale of the building, anticipated that the Scribner store would soon move and started showing the space to potential tenants, the first being executives from Rizzoli. However, soon after the Rizzoli people first went through the store, their company signed a contract to take over an entire building - the Sohmer building.

In the meantime, Mr. Scribner continued his search for a new location. ''My plans hit a snag when I found out the Sohmer building had been taken,'' Mr. Scribner said. ''We couldn't get it because Rizzoli already had the building, but I didn't know that then.''

Eventually Mr. Scribner proposed to Gianfranco Monacelli, president of Rizzoli, that they help resolve each other's problems and make a deal that would preserve the Scribner store in its historic location.

Rizzoli agreed to buy the business and continue to operate Scribner's Fifth Avenue store as well as another in Williamsburg, Va., under the Scribner name. Under some pressure from the new owners of the Scribner Building, Rizzoli also agreed to lease two floors above the store for its United States headquarters, thus insuring that both the form of the famous building, and its function as a center of book publishing, would continue.

Rizzoli signed a lease for the retail space and two floors of office space - a total of about 24,000 square feet.

The Cohen family intends to put $1 million into renovating the building. Floors 4 through 10 and a 1,000-square-foot penthouse are available, with an asking rent of $45 a square foot.