This article was corrected and updated with additional information at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 21.
A new home for TV broadcast and streaming stations WOIO Channel 19, WUAB Channel 43 and WTCL Channel 6.1, which all air 19 News, may be built on a high-profile site in Independence if pieces for what's certain to be a multimillion-dollar project come together.
Gray Television Inc. (NYSE: GTN), the mammoth multimedia company based in Atlanta, applied Monday, July 18, to the city of Independence for a conditional use certificate to put a proposed two-story "television building" on a site visible on the southeast corner of the I-90 and I-77 interchange.
The parcel has more than 300 feet of highway frontage. It is reached through Rockside Woods Boulevard and sits between the Embassy Suites Hotel and Topgolf .
The 3.2-acre parcel was the proposed home of a Saucy Brew Works headquarters and brewpub that had been in the works since 2021. The plan was dropped in March after the Cleveland-based concern found it was able to fulfill its expansion needs at its Ohio City location.
The site, held through Saucy Brew Works Independence LLC, is being marketed for $3.2 million by Cushman & Wakefield CRESCO. In a marketing brochure, it notes the site is "shovel ready." Saucy disclosed the purchase price as $2.1 million in a January 2021 article in Crain's Cleveland Business.
A drawing of a potential site plan filed with the city of Independence shows a 37,000-square-foot building with TV studios, a newsroom, a patio for employees, 12 satellite dishes and a communications tower. The site plan shows parking for 132 cars, including separate parking lots and entrances for employees and visitors.
Gray is required to obtain a certificate of conditional use from the suburb to build on the site because it is proposing an office and television use on land zoned for hotel, motel and auto-related use. The Independence Planning Commission has set a public hearing on the application at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 2
The commission and Independence City Council have approved such conditional use certificates in the past. Indeed, Saucy's plans received the same designation.
If the suburb approves the plan, Gray closes on the land purchase and the building proceeds, it would put in play a move from the downtown Cleveland home of the media properties.
The shared news operations of the CBS affiliate WOIO, the CW affiliate WUAB and Telemundo affiliate WTCL and their business offices are in leased space at Reserve Square, 1717 East 12th St. The corner of East 12th and Chester Avenue outside the TV stations often is used for Channel 19 News live stand-up shots.
The lease for 50,000 square feet of Reserve Square space was renewed for 10 years in 2017 after a public dispute between its management at that time and building owner K&D Group of Willoughby about conditions at the property, though the broadcast stations remained in the structure.
Losing a downtown television presence would be a blow for the central city in terms of an unknown number of possible job losses as well as prestige. It also would be a break from Fox 8, WEWS Channel 5 and the Ideastream Public Media stations, which all are downtown.
However, cleveland.com's operations are now based in Brooklyn at the newspaper's printing plant after the Plain Dealer Publishing Co. sold the downtown newsroom and offices at 1801 Superior Ave. in May to an affiliate of Industrial Commercial Properties of Solon.
Meantime, iHeartMedia has just moved its operations for nine local radio stations, including the WTAM news-talk station, to 668 Euclid Ave. downtown after 20 years of operations in Independence in a multitenant office building. K&D owns the 668 Euclid office, retail and apartment building as well as Reserve Square.
On the flip side, such a centrally located home would make the stations more accessible throughout sprawling Northeast Ohio. That would be especially the case for mobile TV news crews who use the tagline, "First. Fair. Everywhere."
The potential TV moves surfaced seven months after Gray acquired WOIO, WUAB and WTCL related properties as it bought 17 stations from Meredith Local Group in a transaction valued at $2.7 billion.
Gray subsequently named Matt Moran its Cleveland general manager. He held a similar position at Gray's offerings serving Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia.
Gray serves 113 television markets, reaching approximately 36% of the U.S. television market by households. Gray also owns Raycom Sports, Tupelo Media Group and PowerNation Studios as well as two studio production facilities.
Moran, whose name is on the application for the Independence conditional use certificate, declined comment.
Independence Mayor Gregory P. Kurtz, through a spokesperson, also declined comment.
Although the application with the suburb is for Gray, it does not say specifically identify stations that might be involved in a move.
On the section of the city's application for the project/building name, it uses a code name. Such a term is typical of corporate realty undertakings that are in the nebulous, changeable planning stage.
Its code name is "Project VOSOT."
VOSOT is a commonly accepted TV journalism term for "voice over/sound on tape," a relic of broadcasting days before media became digital.
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