Dave Berry, Fred Schuler, John Musgjerd and Sean Reynolds with Jones Lang LaSalle represented Comcast in the deal, while building owner Piedmont Office Realty Trust was represented by Rob Lundin, also from Jones Lang LaSalle, and Joel Williamson of Piedmont. With this lease, the building is 100% occupied. Other tenants include University of Phoenix and Global Knowledge.

"In this environment, most tenants don't want to go through the cost of relocating because it's so expensive to do the big move," Lundin tells GlobeSt.com. "They were initially looking at doing a single-story build-to-suit, but it became more compelling for them to do a renewal deal in our building rather than go through the build-to-suit that would take a long time. With the way the economy is, it made more sense for them to stay in the building."

The property is located in the Northwest suburban submarket, which has been severely impacted by current economic conditions, Lundin says. "They were hit really bad with the subprime lenders and the vacancy is around 23% including sublease space," Lundin says. "There's a lot of large blocks of space available in that market, with 16 blocks of space of 50,000 square feet or greater."

Asking lease rates at the building are around $28 per square foot, gross, Lundin says, but Piedmont cut a deal with Comcast to keep them as a tenant. "It's a difficult market, but we had everything going for us since they've been there a long time and their employees like the building," Lundin says. "They had so many options to look at, so we put together a pretty competitive proposal for them to stay put. It worked out for us because we have a great credit tenant in the building and didn't have to spend a lot on tenant improvements."