Vornado lands major lease on sleepy Third Avenue

Vornado Realty Trust has scored a major coup for its struggling office building at 909 Third Avenue, securing one of Mitdown’s biggest leases of the summer. According to the New York Observer, a group of Interpublic Group agencies, including well-known public relations firm Weber Shandwick, have inked a deal for 220,000 square feet at the office property.

The massive advertising and media firm is moving from 919 Third Avenue, a building owned by rival REIT SL Green Realty, because they were running out of space to expand in that building and wanted to stay in the neighborhood. That is a plus for Third Avenue, which has been Midtown’s weakest submarket during the office leasing slump. The corridor also got a boost in June from a 100,000-square-foot Salesforce.com lease at 685 Third Avenue.

The Observer said Vornado had struggled for years to fill the swath of vacancies at the 1.3 million-square-foot building between East 54th and East 55th streets. Most of Interpublic’s space will be on floors five through nine. It joins Citibank, Proctor & Gamble and Morrison Cohen as tenants in the building, which didn’t show any other vacancies on Vornado’s website. [NYO] — Adam Fusfeld