Comcast signs 100K sf office lease in the Garment District

Cable provider moving into Shorenstein’s 1407 Broadway

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Shorenstein Properties president Charles Malet with 1407 Broadway
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Shorenstein Properties president Charles Malet with 1407 Broadway

Cable and internet giant Comcast, one of the largest office tenants in Manhattan, is reshuffling a small portion of its footprint with a 100,000 square-foot lease in the Garment District.

The cable provider signed a lease covering several floors at Shorenstein Properties’ 1407 Broadway, sources told The Real Deal.

The 10-year deal covers the full 11th and 12th floors and part of the 14th floor in the 42-story building between 38th and 39th streets. Asking rent for the space was $65 per square foot.

A representative for Shorenstein couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

The San Francisco-based investor pumped in $30 million to overhaul the 1.1 million-square-foot property it acquired in 2015 when it bought the leasehold for $330 million from the Lightstone Group and Kamber Management. The renovation includes a new lobby and elevators, as well as an upgraded façade and new retail tenants.

Asking rents at the time were in the $50s per square foot, and many of the floors were divided among numerous smaller tenants, most of which serviced the garment industry. But as the fashion industry’s footprint contracts and technology and media tenants show more interest in the neighborhood, Shorenstein has worked to combine spaces as leases roll in order to create larger floor plates to attract bigger tenants.

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Anthony LoPresti and Michael Gottlieb at Avison Young represented Comcast in the deal, along with David Fahey in Avison’s office in Philadelphia, where the cable giant has its corporate headquarters. The brokers didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A CBRE team led by Peter Turchin that includes Gregg Rothkin, Brett Shannon, Ben Fastenberg, Keith Caggiano and Ross Zimbalist is handling leasing at the property. The brokers declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Shorenstein recently signed menswear company David Donahue and the Risk Insurance Management society to a pair deals totaling more than 26,000 square feet. Footwear designer Vince Camuto earlier year signed a lease for nearly 43,000 square feet in the building.

Comcast, which merged with NBC Universal in 2011, occupies more than 1 million square feet in Manhattan, most of which is located at its headquarters in 30 Rockefeller Center.

The company was ranked as the 19th largest tenant in the city in 2016, according to data from CoStar.