Chicago Radio: WGN Radio To EXIT Tower

WGN 720 AM will be leaving its longtime headquarters at Tribune Tower next year to relocated to 303 East Wacker Drive.

Chicago Media write Robert Feder first reported the Tribune Broadcasting move.

WGN Radio will join two other units of Tribune Media in moving across the river to the Illinois Center complex, occupying two floors of the 28-story high-rise at 303 East Wacker Drive. Tribune Media sold the 1925 landmark neo-Gothic Tribune Tower at 435 North Michigan Avenue last year to Los Angeles-based developer CIM Group in a $240 million deal.

Word of the move also comes as WGN Radio is on track to be sold as part of the $6.6 billion acquisition of Tribune Media by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

“I’m pleased to tell you that we have decided to relocate WGN Radio to 303 E. Wacker, the same building in which the broadcast and technology groups will be working,” Larry Wert, president broadcast media for Tribune Media, wrote in a memo to staff.

“We purposely chose this space in order to remain together as a broadcast ‘family.’  The new space is being custom-designed for the radio station and will be state-of-the-art.  While we will give up the showcase studio on Michigan Avenue, listeners will hear no difference in the outstanding programing WGN has provided for nearly nine decades.

From 2012, a tour of the current WGN facilities on the 7th floor...