The 85-employee station will move to the former home of Clover Technologies Inc., a network-integration company that filed for bankruptcy in 2003. WTVS says the building is equipped with fiber-opticcable and electronic control rooms and will be cheaper to modify into a digital TV station than building a new studio, which was the station's other option.
WTVS general manager Steve Antoniotti says the station plans to spend about $14 million to buy the 40,000-sf office space and upgrade it. Station executives indicated in March that Channel 56 was considering building a new studio and headquarters outside Detroit because it couldn't find a spot to build in the Cultural Center, its first choice.
Channel 56 had outgrown its longtime home, 50,000 sf in the former broadcast studios of Channel 2 on Second Avenue north of the Fisher Building. He adds Channel 56 needed to move or rebuild its present quarters in part to accommodate $10 million in upgraded digital broadcast equipment required by federal mandate.
Detroit city and economic leaders had been scouting possible locations in the city for the station, but Antoniotti says the availability of a facility like Clover was simply too attractive to pass up. The move by Channel 56 will leave NBC affiliate WDIV-Channel 4 as the only TV station operating in the city.
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