Business

GREEN INKS VIACOM

ENTERTAINMENT giant Viacom won’t be leaving the bright lights of Times Square after all.

The Sumner Redstone-controlled company has quietly inked a deal to renew its lease for over 1 million square feet at SL Green’s 1515 Broadway, the tower famously fronted by the MTV studio.

“It’s party time for Green and for Times Square,” an insider said of the deal, which was signed Friday night.

The extension – one of the largest leases ever signed in Midtown – will keep Viacom at 1515 Broadway through at least mid-2015. It was kept quiet by SL Green and Viacom, both publicly traded companies wary of running afoul of SEC disclosure rules.

Viacom’s decision not to bolt climaxed one of the hardest-fought and most closely watched corporate real estate sagas in recent memory.

SL Green, the city’s largest commercial landlord, and Viacom were locked in often bumptious negotiations for years.

Viacom had several leases totaling 1.3 million square feet at 1515 Broadway, owned by a joint venture of SL Green and SITQ. The largest of them, for 1 million feet, was to expire in 2010, and penny-pinching Redstone was exploring a possible move to much cheaper Hudson Square downtown.

In recent months, proxies for both sides at 1515 Broadway ratcheted up the tension by leaking alternative takes on the talks – that Green didn’t care one way or the other if Viacom stayed or not, and that Viacom was grumpy over the landlord’s ongoing, $160 million capital improvements project.

Last Wednesday, my colleague Lois Weiss reported that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman had even taken a hard look at the vacant former New York Times building on West 43rd Street just a week before.

“He did indeed do that,” an insider told us. “But between then and last Friday night, Viacom settled on 1515 Broadway.”

Calls to SL Green Leasing Director Steve Durels were not returned. Viacom’s reps at CB Richard Ellis – a team believed to include Michael Laginestra, Scott Gottlieb and Andrew Sussman – declined comment.

But a player familiar with the situation confirmed, “Viacom extended and they have renewal options beyond 2015.”

There was no word on what Viacom is paying. The company was reportedly paying $50 a square foot under its old lease – close to the “ask” at Trinity Real Estate’s 345 Hudson St.

SL Green recently signed new leases at 1515 Broadway at $85 a foot.

But what matters most is that Viacom won’t scatter its various units into cheaper digs around town – a scenario given credence when it moved Comedy Central out of 1775 Broadway to 345 Hudson St. last year. Viacom still has a total of 2.5 million square feet in Midtown.

Viacom’s stay-put is also psychologically important for Times Square, still basking in acclaim for the new TKTS booth and red-lit viewing stand.

The “Crossroads of the World” is home to Morgan Stanley, Ernst & Young, Thomson Reuters, Condé Nast and several law firms.

But for all its Spectacolor signage and street-level entertainment uses, the “Disney-fied” stretch from 42nd Street to 47th Street wouldn’t feel the same without a show business conglomerate’s front offices, too.

Viacom is the parent of Paramount, MTV Networks and BET, among other brands.

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Despite dramatic images of Extell’s Diamond Tower that were shown on this page for the first time last year, it’s not crystal-clear when steel will rise for Gary Barnett‘s 39-story, nearly 900,000 square-foot project.

Foundation work between West 46th and 47th streets and between Fifth and Sixth avenues is ongoing, but Extell has yet to announce it’s gotten a construction loan.

However, sources said Extell fully intends to build.

And on Friday, the city Finance Dept. recorded the purchase of maybe the last piece of the puzzle Extell needed – development rights from 54 W. 47th St. next door.

The $3.5 million deal generated an amendment to the developer’s mortgage-spreader agreement with CSE Mortgage of Chevy Chase, Md.

The total debt is $160,637,559 – a figure that covers Extell’s own land and a batch of air rights from neighboring properties as well as some start-up costs.

Last February, Barnett told us the tower – which will have an office-building entrance on West 46th Street and a diamond industry entrance on West 47th – would “open” two years from then.

That schedule now seems unlikely.

Although Extell de clined to comment, industry sources say it’s possible Barnett might revise the original configuration, although the striking design by Skid more Owings & Merrill won’t likely change.

“They might even drop the ‘Diamond Tower’ name,” one source said, “even though it’s still called ‘Extell Diamond Tower’ on permits and city finance records.”

steve.cuozzo@nypost.com