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From Washington Business Journal April 21, 2001 |
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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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