Year’s Third-Biggest Lease So Far! Mad Men’s 360K Feet

Pour the brokers at 1285 Sixth Avenue a good, stiff martini. Old-school ad agency BBDO worldwide has renewed for 360,000 square feet, marking the third-largest leasing deal in New York this year.

BBDO, the ad firm that helped inspire Mad Men‘s gin-soaked Sterling Cooper, is now set to keep its headquarters in the 1.8 million-square-foot building until 2022. The only bigger deals this year have been the 406,000 square feet taken by law firm Proskauer Rose at 11 Times Square, and a 385,759-square-foot lease by Jones Apparel Group at 1411 Broadway.

Certainly, the bland building with a prime spot between 51st and 52nd streets must be doing something right. It’s also the home of 2009’s record-holding lease, for 540,944 square feet, by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

The Real Deal first had news of the lease’s closing. Earlier, Real Estate Weekly reported that BBDO was close to a deal, eager to grab a bargain rent in the $40-per-square-foot range.

Peter Riguardi of Jones Lang LaSalle represented the landlord, a partnership of insurance giant AXA Equitable Life Insurance and institutional investors from JPMorgan Asset Management. The tenant was represented by Lee Feld of Feld Real Estate, along with Bruce Mosler of Cushman & Wakefield.