WCNY settles into new home on Syracuse’s Near Westside

SYRACUSE — WCNY, Central New York’s public-broadcasting company, on Oct. 30 formally opened its new, 56,000-square-foot broadcast and education center at 415 W. Fayette St. in Syracuse.

WCNY moved into the new facility earlier this year after having previously operated at 506 Old Liverpool Road in Salina.

“It was always my feeling that we, as a PBS station, really belong in the middle of a neighborhood,” says Robert Daino, president and CEO of WCNY.

Its previous location on Old Liverpool Road is located on a busy, four-lane highway that made it difficult for people to “walk up” to the facility and “engage” with WCNY, he says.

Daino believes that community engagement should be part of any public-broadcasting station.

“We wanted to re-identify and reinvent ourselves, and what better place to be than an entire neighborhood [Near Westside] that had the same mission and goal,” Daino says.

WCNY was also “running out of space” in its Old Liverpool Road location, where it had operated since 1965.

The operation involves media that includes television and radio broadcasts, along with content production for print and social media. WCNY wants to continue expanding, growing, and delivering services, programs, and projects that people “demand and expect,” Daino says.

“We really needed to be in a different kind of facility than the existing facility would allow us to be,” he says.

Paula Kerger, president and CEO of Arlington, Va.–based Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and New York Education Commissioner John King spoke at the Oct. 30 ceremonies to mark the occasion, the organization said in the news release.

Construction and payment

The project’s construction and capital costs totaled about $20 million, according to a WCNY fact sheet on the project. The organization used both private and public funding to finance the project.

The funding sources included a $4 million bridge loan from JPMorgan Chase & Co. WCNY is starting a capital campaign to pay off that loan.

It also used $6.2 million in equity from a federal new markets tax credit, which Daino emphasizes is “private-equity investment money.”

WCNY also received a $2.5 million Near West Side Initiative grant.

In addition, WCNY also used a $2 million Empire State Development (ESD) City-by-City grant and a $5 million ESD Restore NY grant to help pay for the project.

“What we tried to is leverage the use of some taxpayer investment from the state, such as the [ESD] City-by-City [grant] and the Restore New York [grant], which are economic-development dollars that are used as catalysts for projects like this,” Daino says.

WCNY is funding the remainder of the project with foundation funds, individual gifts, and pledges.

King + King Architects, LLP of Syracuse designed the building, and Hueber-Breuer Construction Co., Inc. of Syracuse served as the contractor on the project, according to WCNY.

Subcontractors included the Syracuse location of Victor, N.Y.–based O’Connell Electric Co., Inc.; Century Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. of DeWitt; the Syracuse office of Milwaukee, Wisc.–based Johnson Controls, Inc., according to Daino.

In addition, Burns Bros Contractors of Syracuse was in charge of the plumbing work; Sposato Floor Covering Co. of Salina handled the flooring work; the Syracuse office of Morristown, N.J.–based Schindler Elevator Corp. worked on the facility’s elevators; and Sedgwick Business Interiors of Syracuse supplied the furniture for the new facility, he adds.

King + King designed the building to achieve Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) platinum status, Daino says.

The U.S. Green Building Council is currently considering WCNY’s application for platinum status.

“We haven’t yet been approved. That’s going through that process. We feel comfortable that we will achieve that because it was designed and built with all those constraints,” Daino says.

The building’s roof includes solar panels, which are intended to help WCNY lower its energy costs. Its new rain gardens also capture 95 percent of the rain runoff, according to the WCNY fact sheet.

Two buildings make up the campus, including the refurbished 30,000-square-foot former Case Supply building, and the new 26,000-square-foot technology building that includes studios and the space leased to Centralcast, LLC that provides television content for nine PBS stations in New York and New Jersey.

The facility also includes WCNY’s 10,000-square-foot education center, which occupies the third floor. The center features education programs including Enterprise America, described as a hands-on learning program for high-school students to learn about entrepreneurship in a “simulated city,” the organization said.

About WCNY

WCNY is a private, tax-exempt, nonprofit organization and member-supported PBS affiliate.

The organization employs more than 70 people, according to the WCNY fact sheet.

Its broadcast area encompasses about one-third of upstate New York and reaches more than 1.8 million people in 19 counties, the organization said.

WCNY broadcasts five digital television channels, including WCNY, Create, World, Plus, and HowTo, the fact sheet says.

It also broadcasts three primary radio channels, including Classic FM (91.3 in Syracuse, 89.5 in the Utica–Rome area, and 90.9 in Watertown and the North Country). Its Jazz and Oldies formats are available on high-definition (HD) radio and in streaming audio, according to the WCNY website.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com