The former Rogers, Peet building at 485 Fifth Avenue on the northeast corner at 41st Street directly across from the entrance to the New York Public Library has been acquired by Belfonti Capital Partners and the Carlyle Group from Tri-Realty Management Corporation for a price reported to be about $88 million.

The brown-brick, 10-story, 185,000-square-foot building will be redeveloped into residential condominiums by the new owner and will have about 26,000 square feet of retail space.

Details on the conversion such as the number of units and whether the existing building will be demolished or its facade altered were not yet available and calls to Belfonti Capital Partners from CityRealty.com were not returned yesterday.

The handsome building has a three-story limestone base and two-story-high limestone pilasters on its top two floors and an attractive cornice. Its upper floors along the avenue offer impressive views of Bryant Park and its surroundings.

Belfonti Capital Partners, a subsidiary of Belfonti Associates of Hamden, Connecticut, recently opened an office in the city and is also converting the building at 260 Park Avenue South.

The building is the latest of several major residential developments on Fifth Avenue south of 42nd Street. Others include 425 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street and projects in various stages of construction at 400 Fifth Avenue and 325 Fifth Avenue.

Last May, the building was sold by Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., Inc., in a transaction it valued"at approximately $48 million." The Tommy Hilfiger concern had previously announced it was relocating from the building to the Starrett-Lehigh Building at 601 West 26th Street.

Rogers, Peet & Co., was founded in 1874 through the merger of the clothing firms of Marvin N. Rogers and Charles Bostwick Peet. The first Rogers, Peet store was at 487 Broadway and at its peak the company had about a dozen stores in the city. The final store was at this location and it opened in 1915 and closed in the mid-1980s.