Another tech company moving into 229 West 43rd Street

Blackstone Group’s Equity Office will add yet another so-called TAMI (technology, advertising, media and information) tenant to 229 West 43rd Street, The Real Deal has learned. Online advertising network Collective is taking the entire eighth floor – nearly 58,000 square feet – at the property, according to sources familiar with the deal.

Collective will pay rents starting in the mid-$60s per square foot over a ten-year term, according to CompStak data, and will get about a year’s worth of free rent in the building, the former home of the New York Times. The firm currently pays about $40 per square foot for its 31,615-square-foot space at 99 Park Avenue, according to CompStak. The 99 Park Avenue fifth-floor space has now been put up for a sublease, according to office space search site 42Floors.

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank’s Brian Waterman, Brent Ozarowski, Jonathan Tootell and Lance Korman handle leasing at the 767,000-square-foot West 43rd Street building, according to its website. The brokers couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Cassidy Turley’s Richard Bernstein, Harry Krausman and Daniel Thompson represented Collective. A spokesperson for Cassidy Turley declined comment, and representatives for Collective couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.

Blackstone paid Lev Leviev’s Africa Israel USA and private equity firm Five Mile Capital $160 million for the top 12 floors of the 15-story building in August 2011, as TRD reported. The private equity giant has since invested at least $105 million in a drive to reposition the building as a tech-friendly oasis in the heart of Times Square. A number of leasing deals with high-profile TAMI tenants such as Yahoo suggest that the bet appears to be paying off.