“We're thrilled to be returning to the neighborhood, right in the heart of New York City, next to Radio City and Rock Center, providing an easy commute for Hachette Book Group staff,” the spokeswoman says. “The central location puts us close to literary agencies, publishers, and the media.”

State Street Capital took 100,000 square feet in the building earlier this year, Together, that deal and the new lease with Hachette will absorb most of the Microsoft space, a large block of space that initially seemed tough to fill.

That appeared to be an even tougher mountain to climb at the beginning of the year when AXA Equitable—the life insurance company—dumped about 40,000 square feet of its space at 1290 Sixth Ave. onto the market for sublease. The company was offering deeply discounted rents in the $40s per square foot. That move came as hundreds of thousands of square feet of competing vacancies festered on the Sixth Avenue market, creating the appearance of a glut of options on the avenue.

But leasing picked up, the AXA space was quickly absorbed and Vornado found takers for the more expensive space it was offering directly in the building, which has a newly renovated lobby. Hachette will take the fourth and fifth floors for five years. The spokeswoman declined to reveal the rate of the lease.