Zuckerman Snags First Tenant for New Eighth Avenue Tower

Powerful landlord and print media titan Mort Zuckerman has signed his first tenant for his new tower-to-be on Eighth Avenue and West 55th Street, closing on a lease of more than 200,000 square feet with the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a source confirmed.

Taken with another tentative mega-lease with the law firm Proskauer Rose, said to be about 400,000 square feet, the hungry attorneys seem to have vindicated the decision by Mr. Zuckerman and his Boston Properties to push forward with a formerly tenantless building at a time of financial uncertainty.

Despite the relatively advanced stage of planning for the project—Boston Properties has filed for building permits for the tower—Mr. Zuckerman seems reticent to release much info about the building. His regional manager for New York, Robert Selsam, declined to provide renderings or to comment on the lease, saying that the firm would do so at its own pace. Representatives from Boston Properties and its broker CB Richard Ellis also would not comment.

Rents are expected to be high, perhaps over $100 a foot, for the tower, which Mr. Zuckerman has said is modeled after the modernist-style Lever House.

CB Richard Ellis represented both Boston Properties and Gibson Dunn on the deal.