Luckett & Farley’s Media + Entertainment Group, one of the nation’s foremost architects, engineers and designers of television and radio facilities, performance venues and creative-media workplaces, has been hired by the Tribune Company as the architect, engineer and interior designer for a full-scale renovation of WPIX’s newsroom.
The Media + Entertainment Group will completely update the broadcast facility, located on the second floor of the Daily News Building, at 220 East 42nd Street.
The location, which serves as the CW Network’s New York flagship, airs to more than 10 million viewers and serves as the official broadcast home of the New York Mets.
“WPIX has been at this location for the past 65 years and is a quintessential New York City broadcaster; its new environment will reflect that and be unlike any other presently seen on the airwaves,” said William J. Hallisky, project manager and senior designer for the Media + Entertainment Group.
Slated for completion in the second quarter of 2014, the space will be completed in strategic phases so that the facilities remain fully operational, and staff is minimally impacted, during construction.
The completed floor will contain the station’s broadcast studios and primary control rooms, a newsroom and assignment desk, production and editing suites, a conferencing center, a communal space called “the commons,” green rooms and other support spaces.
The entire facility — beyond the anchor desk — will be “camera ready” and able to be used for broadcasts as needed.
Working alongside Chris Zerafa, vice president of technology at WPIX, the Media + Entertainment Group is overseeing all professional consultants on the project, including mechanical, engineering, plumbing and structural.
In addition to the current assignment, the Media + Entertainment Group recently assisted the Tribune Company in renovating offices for WPIX’s creative team, sales team and control room, which produces on-air content for the station and its sub-channels, on the tenth floor of the Daily News Building.
