“The Home Team” has a found a new home — a short throw away from home plate.
Seattle’s KING-TV, along with its stations KONG and NWCN, will be moving to Home Plate Center, an office building across the street from Safeco Field, according to a memo to employees this morning from Ray Heacox, the president and general manager of KING Broadcasting.
The news confirms widespread rumors about KING’s planned move to the building. An official announcement is expected shortly.
“After more than 60 years located at 333 Dexter Ave, our home and our family is moving,” wrote Heacox in the memo. “It is also an exciting time for the station and our industry. Much planning has gone into creating a space that is forward thinking in both aesthetic and function.”
Other tenants in the Home Plate Center building include Seattle technology company RealNetworks.
KING, owned by USA Today parent Gannett Co., recently sold its longtime home on Seattle’s Dexter Ave. for $42.5 million to a real estate company, Kilroy Realty Corp., that plans to construct two office towers on the block. Construction is expected to begin next year on the Dexter site, which is a few blocks away from Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.
Update: Reached via phone, Heacox said KING will lease roughly 58,000 square feet in the building. That compares to more than 200,000 square feet at its existing location, which was built to also accommodate radio stations, in addition to much larger KING Broadcasting corporate operation, before the company became part of Belo Corp. and then Gannett.
The tentative plan is to move to the new space sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, although the timing is in flux, Heacox said.
KING will occupy space on the first floor of the north building at Home Plate Center, all of the second floor of the north building, and part of the third. The ground-floor space will include a glass-front studio that will give the public a chance to see news broadcasts as they happen, while giving the station new options for interacting with the public. Crowds are large in the area on game days.
Other benefits of the new space include the quick access to Interstate 5, Interstate 90 and Highway 99, as well as major arterial roads. In addition, Heacox cited the growing presence of technology startups in Pioneer Square. “We are as much digital as we are TV, and we want to make sure we’re pushing in that direction,” he said.
Update: Here’s a rendering of what the building will look like.
