CBS renews lease for office across from Ed Sullivan Theater

The CBS Corporation renewed its offices at the Ruben Companies’ 1700 Broadway office tower, which sits across the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater where the network films its flagship late-night show “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

CBS renewed 48,000 square feet in a long-term deal at the 42-story tower, which occupies the full block between West 53rd and 54th streets, sources told The Real Deal. The network currently occupies the 10th and 11th floors in the building, and this new deal will see it reshuffle some space in the 600,000-square-foot-plus tower.

Representatives for Ruben Companies and CBS could not be immediately reached for comment. There was no asking rent for the space since it never hit the open market, but a source said rents in the base of the tower ask around $65 per square foot.

The family-run firm Ruben built the tower in 1968 on top of land it leased from the Shubert Foundation. Earlier last year Ruben bought the land for $280 million in an off-market transaction.

Major tenants in the building include the architecture firm Gensler. Across the street, CBS bought the Ed Sullivan Theater for $4 million in 1993, when it lured late night host David Letterman from rival broadcaster NBC.

The CBS Corporation, which owns the 38-story office tower it’s headquartered in at 51 West 52nd Street – nicknamed “Black Rock” – is one of the largest office tenants in the city. As of January, the company leased occupied 1.57 million square feet in Manhattan, according to data from CoStar, which makes it the borough’s 19th-largest tenant.

A CBRE team of Michael Laginestra, Andrew Sussman and Rocco Laginestra represented CBS in the deal. David Falk, Peter Shimkin and Daniel Levine at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank handle leasing in the Ruben Companies tower. The CBRE brokers declined to comment, and the brokers from NGKF couldn’t be reached.

(To view a ranking of Manhattan’s top office leasing tenants, click here)