WJLA Channel 7 will move to Arlington next fall, becoming the
first of the area's major network affiliates to leave the District.
The ABC station has signed a lease to broadcast from 60,000
square feet in Rosslyn's Twin Towers, which soon are to be vacated by Gannett
and USA Today. The station's 200 employees -- now taking six floors in the
Intelsat building in Northwest -- are expected to move in September 2002 into
30,000 square feet in each of the silver buildings at 1100 and 1000 Wilson Blvd.
Channel 7's new home will be designed by Rees Associates (http://www.rees-associates.com),
which also built studios for BET and WUSA Channel 9.
After more than a dozen years at 3007 Tilden St. NW, Channel 7
was unable to reach a long-term lease deal with its landlord, says Christopher
Pike, station president and general manager. Pike says Intelsat, a satellite
consortium in the process of privatizing, couldn't commit to a lengthy lease
without a clear idea of its future space needs.
Tim Helmig is vice president of Westfield Realty, which owns
the Twin Towers. He says he expects WJLA to add a Times Square flavor to
the angular buildings, with digital signs across the front of the broadcast
space at 1100 Wilson.
"Obviously we're losing a great company like the Freedom
Forum and Gannett," Helmig says, "but there's another high-quality
broadcast company coming in as their replacement."
Most of the 1,800 people at Gannett and its flagship paper in
Rosslyn are expected to move in stages this summer to a 25-acre headquarters in
Tysons Corner. Up to 75 USA Today and Gannett News Service staffers, though,
will work out of the old Greyhound bus terminal on New York Avenue NE in D.C.
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