Amid all the dreadful news about commercial real estate, it’s outright soothing to hear that nuts-and-bolts leases continue to get signed.

Broadway Partners just inked a sizable new lease at its 340 Madison Avenue, the 22-story, squat glass building one block from Grand Central.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency –- an arm of the Treasury Department that regulates national banks (and, boy!, could they use some regulation) -- has leased 50,519 square feet in the building, which the OCC has leased in since 2004. The office is expanding its footprint from about 45,000 square feet. The asking rent was $80 a square foot.  read more »

Time to ready the oxygen tanks: Commercial brokers are planning to race up 86 floors of the Empire State Building.

Come Feb. 5, an Empire State Building spokeswoman tells us that the city’s biggest brokerages will square off with each other as part of the building’s annual “Run-Up,” with Jones Lang LaSalle, Cushman & Wakefield, CB Richard Ellis, Studley and Newmark Knight Frank each planning to send at least one team of five runners (team names include the “Sub-Primers” and “Victoria’s Secret”).  read more »