August 12th, 2009 
weldamfm 
The giant studio at 1515 Broadway that hosted many of MTV’s biggest televised moments—from the run of TRL to, uh, the end of TRL—is going on the market because Viacom is tired of paying $11.6 million in yearly rent, according to the landlord. Also up for grabs: the corner space on 44th and Broadway that houses the MTV Store, which apparently will be rented to whatever company is eager to pay $1,000 a square foot. Where are all the teenage Jonas Brothers fans going to congregate when they’re cutting school now, huh?
Durels said the 22,216-square-foot, second-floor studio — which has block-long, 167-foot frontage and 16-foot-high windows visible to daily hordes of office employees, shoppers and visitors from around the world — could be used as a store or for another “broadcast use.”
He didn’t say how much Green was asking, but databases list it at $450 a square foot for the studio, and a whopping $1,000 a square foot for the 1,624-square-foot MTV store at street level, which must be taken with the studio space, for a total rent of $11.6 million a year.
But a source said that number could go up or down depending on whether a new tenant took advantage of “super-signage” options on the building’s corners.
It wasn’t known how much MTV is paying under its old lease. But an insider called it an “apples and oranges” comparison. When the studio lease was signed in the 1990s, it was “for a use that didn’t even exist in Times Square, and it was rented as if it was office space.” Office rents at the time were as low as the $40s per square foot.
First Virgin, now this? Given the depressed state of the commercial real-estate market, we should start mentally preparing myself for the space becoming The World’s Most Fishbowly Duane Reade now.
BROADWAY BLUES [NYP]
TRL [Idolator]
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